Perennial vegetables can be hard to come by, and those that grow in shade are even harder. Caucasian spinach is a perennial, shade-loving leafy green that tastes wonderfully earthy. It’s also a pick-and-come-again plant that will keep providing for years.
Caucasian spinach will die back down to the ground in the spring, and just when you think it’s dead, it reappears when the weather warms up. Plus, it’s easy to start from seed, so you don’t have to search out live plants. It’s an upright grower, so it only needs a small footprint.
Sounds perfect? Let’s dig into this underappreciated gem.
What We’ll Discuss
What is Caucasian Spinach?
Caucasian spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides) is a perennial plant native to the Caucasus region around Turkey, Russia, and Iran.
It’s also called mountain spinach and grows as a vine in wooded areas and cave entrances, where it’s cool and somewhat shady. It’s commonly found in ravines and rocky areas in spruce and pine forests in its native area.
Provide decent support, and this long-lived vine-climbing plant will reach around 12 feet in height in a relatively short period. Its vining habit makes it perfect for smaller spaces in the garden where it can grow up instead of along the ground.
In USDA Growing Zones 3 to 9, it will last for years and produce lots of shoots early in the season before you can start harvesting the young and older leaves later on.
H. tamnoides is the only species in the genus Hablitzia, and there are no cultivars of the species.
How to Propagate Caucasian Spinach
This is an easy plant to propagate. If you have access to a live plant or can purchase the seeds, you have multiple options.
Seeds
The most reliable way to start Caucasian spinach is by seed. In late winter, stratify the seeds for 30 days in moist sphagnum moss in a sealed bag in the fridge. Keep the moss moist but not wet. You can also place potted seeds outdoors for a month or two in winter if your region gets below 34°F.
After stratifying, sow three seeds in four-inch pots using good-quality seed-raising soil.
Place these containers outside and protect them from frosts and heavy rain until they germinate and are ready for transplanting. You can safely transplant once the seedlings are at least six inches long.
Stem Cuttings
You can take a cutting from a large clump of an established Caucasian spinach plant, but it is not as reliable as stratifying seeds. Only do this with a plant that is two or three years old. A young plant isn’t established enough.
In the fall, before the plant dies down, choose a healthy stem and follow it down to the ground. Remove the stem with a portion of the root still attached. Be careful not to disturb the remaining root system.
Cut the top of the stem off so that the cutting is about six to eight inches high.
Pot this up into an individual container with good-quality potting soil. Firm the soil up so the roots are supported and the stem is upright. Keep the cutting indoors in bright, indirect light until the spring after the last predicted frost.
Plant in its permanent spot in early spring after hardening off for a week.
How to Care For Caucasian Spinach
Remember, this is a woodland climber, so it needs a shaded area that is protected from wind and harsh sun. Partial shade or dappled sun is ideal. Caucasian spinach won’t tolerate direct sun for more than half the day. It’s better off in heavier shade than too much sun.
It prefers moist but not waterlogged soil. The soil type is not as important as the ability to retain moisture. Make sure it is free draining.
Plant in sandy, loamy, slightly clay soil.
Caucasian spinach can tolerate cold weather and survives temperatures as low as -22ºF.
You don’t need to feed it too much, but a fertilizer formulated for veggies at the beginning of spring is a good idea. Don’t over-fertilize because Caucasian spinach prefers less nutritional soil.
To mimic this plant’s natural environment, mulch with leaves, hay, or straw to help retain the moisture. This replicates the fallen leaves on the ground in woodland areas.
Being deciduous, Caucasian spinach will die back in the winter. You can cover it with a layer of hay or similar in frigid areas at the lower end of its Zone tolerance, but it’s unnecessary in warmer environments.
Plant the seedlings about 20 inches apart. Since this is a climber, provide support as the plant can reach 9 to 12 feet. Use bean poles, trellis, or anything sturdy. You don’t need to tie the Caucasian spinach to the support because it will happily climb and vine on its own.
Container Planting Caucasian Spinach
You can certainly plant Caucasian spinach in containers if you make sure of a couple of things:
Provide plenty of shade. The container can’t be in full sun on a deck or somewhere similar. A little morning sun is fine, but afternoon sun is too harsh.
Make sure the container is well-draining but doesn’t dry out. Terra cotta dries out quickly, so you’d need a watering system to keep the soil moist. Sealed cement or clay would be a better option because it dries out more slowly.
Provide a structure for the plant to climb up. A trellis or cage works well.
Let the plant die back in winter and mulch the container until spring. Remove the mulch once the weather warms up.
Container plants need more frequent feeding than plants in the ground. Give them a feeding with a veggie fertilizer in the spring as the plant emerges, once in late spring, and one more time in mid-summer.
Best Companion Plants for Caucasian Spinach
If you plant Caucasian spinach in a heavy woodland-type environment where it is mostly shaded, you’re taking advantage of an area most plants don’t want to grow. That makes it a little challenging to find companions.
If you plant in an area with a bit more sun, at least six hours or more, you can plant alliums like leeks, onions, and garlic. Don’t plant garlic and onions too close to the spinach, or you might disturb the roots.
Brassicas, including broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, work well. You could also twine them up a fence or trellis along with peas.
Don’t plant with nasturtiums. This is because nasturtiums are climbing and spreading plants that will compete too much with the Caucasian spinach and potentially take over. Caucasian spinach is much nicer than nasturtiums.
Potatoes will disturb the soil too much, so avoid that, and fennel shares too many pests.
Problems and Solutions for Growing Caucasian Spinach
This is quite a hardy plant but can be afflicted by the following:
Slugs and Snails
Unfortunately, this is a tasty plant for snails and slugs, and on top of that, it’s large, so their numbers can grow quickly if not kept in check. Sprinkle slug and snail bait at the base of the plant or use your favorite control method.
Aphids
If the weather is humid, you may find aphids infest the plant. These sapsuckers cause yellowing and stunted growth. Read our article on how to identify and control aphids in the garden.
Leaf Hoppers
Leaf hoppers can become a problem for Caucasian spinach. Read our informative article on how to identify and stop them because they can spread beet curly top virus.
Beet Curly Top Virus
Beet curly top virus (Geminivirus) can infect plants from 44 families and 300 species of plants. It’s highly likely you have something in your garden infected by this virus. It’s spread by leaf hoppers.
You will see a Caucasian spinach struggle to grow to the proper size, leaves will be crinkly and turned inwards. Be particularly careful if there are any sugar beets planted nearby.
Control leaf hoppers with insecticide. You could use a knock-down type like organic pyrethrum and neem oil as the longer-lasting ingredient. Spray every two weeks with neem oil as a preventative.
Harvesting Caucasian Spinach
This is a swift-growing plant. Remember, it grows up to 12 feet long in just one year. The leaf buds appear in early spring. If your plant is well established, with a couple of years of growth, you can harvest these young stems when they are around four inches long.
Otherwise, pluck off the leaves whenever you need them and enjoy! You can eat the early, tender leaves raw in salads. The bigger leaves can be cooked and substituted for spinach in any recipe. They can be a little tough raw as they age, but you can still eat them.
Once the fall arrives, you’ll want to harvest all of the leaves before a freeze comes and causes the plant to go dormant.
You may think that with such a big spinach plant, how many should you plant to keep the supply going through the season.
A good rule of thumb is to plant one plant for each person in your household. Or, you can grow several with the intent of freezing or canning the leaves.
