Water spinach · Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
When to plant water spinach in Pretoria
Main outdoor window
7-28 Aug
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
24 July
In Pretoria, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
29 Nov - 30 Apr
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 Pretoria
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
26 Jun - 17 Jul
Four weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
7-28 Aug
Two weeks after your last frost.
Plant out
7-28 Aug
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
29 Nov - 30 Apr
Water spinach through the year
Against the frost risk in Pretoria
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 Pretoria.
The median frost-free season here is 322 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 Pretoria
Other vegetables to time
Growing water spinach in Pretoria
When should I plant water spinach in Pretoria?
Aim for 7-28 Aug in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 24 Aug - 14 Sep - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will water spinach be ready to harvest in Pretoria?
Expect to start picking around 29 Nov - 30 Apr, 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.