Spinach Cutting Tools

Fresh spinach makes a delicious base for a salad.

If you are growing your own spinach, you may be wondering what sort of tools you can use to cut it. Different types of tools can significantly speed up the harvesting process. However, different methods of cutting also have different effects on the future growth of your crops.

Harvest Knives

Harvest knives of various sizes are available from various gardening companies, and allow you to quickly harvest most of each plant's leaves in a single swipe. While this method leaves the bases of the stems, it also takes the new growth leaves of the spinach plants, preventing them from later growing into full-grown leaves.

Scissors

Scissors and other cutting tools can allow you to pick out a few leaves from each spinach plant at a time while avoiding taking too much of each plant at once. While a sturdy pair of scissors can work for this purpose, one-handed cutting tools like the Fiskars flower-cutting tool work best.

Hand Picking

Of course, there is always the option of picking your spinach by hand. Picking individual leaves will allow regrowth of your crop. If you use this method, be sure to pinch off each leaf 2 inches up the stem. You can also simply remove your entire spinach plants. However, this bears the obvious disadvantage of keeping your plants from providing you with more harvests.

References

• Tiny Farm Blog; Cutting Spinach; September, 2008
• Territorial Seed Company: Territorial Seed Company Harvest Knife
• All Things Green: Easy Way to Cut Spinach