Water spinach · Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China
When to plant water spinach in Shijiazhuang
Main outdoor window
14 Apr - 5 May
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
31 March
In Shijiazhuang, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
1 Jun - 31 Oct
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Shijiazhuang
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
3-24 Mar
Four weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
14 Apr - 5 May
Two weeks after your last frost.
Plant out
14 Apr - 5 May
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
1 Jun - 31 Oct
Water spinach through the year
Against the frost risk in Shijiazhuang
Why these dates
Start indoors four weeks before the last frost and plant out two weeks after it into soil kept permanently wet. Cut 20cm of tip growth and it regrows within a fortnight.
Damaged at about 5C, long before frost. It needs consistently warm nights and stops dead in a cool spell.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Water spinach are timed from 4 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Shijiazhuang.
The median frost-free season here is 223 days, against 45 to 60 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Shijiazhuang
Other vegetables to time
Growing water spinach in Shijiazhuang
When should I plant water spinach in Shijiazhuang?
Aim for 14 Apr - 5 May in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 28 Apr - 19 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will water spinach be ready to harvest in Shijiazhuang?
Expect to start picking around 1 Jun - 31 Oct, based on 45 to 60 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will water spinach tolerate?
Damaged at about 5C, long before frost. It needs consistently warm nights and stops dead in a cool spell.