My Spinach Lives (Despite the Cold)!

It's not growing, but I do have spinach continuing to live in my garden. Apparently you can grow spinach in the winter, under a cold frame, in climates like mine. But I don't have a cold frame.

I planted spinach in the fall, mulched it with leaves to protect it, and when it got cold enough it went dormant. And has not died.

Which is awesome. I get excited about little things. I'm hoping in the spring when things thaw, I'll have a great start on my spinach and an early harvest. It's all theoretical at this point as I've never done it before.

Here's my spinach, peaking out of the leafy mulch:

I made my white bean and Italian sausage slow-cooker soup the other day, with a couple of twists. I like trying new things with soup because it's really hard to screw up soups. Even for me.

Instead of celery, I threw in potato. And instead of kale or collard greens at the end of the process, I used spinach. It was not fresh spinach from my garden; just baby spinach from the store.

I think it turned out rather well. This is just a shot before I stirred it in for a quick 10-minute final cook before serving. Here's the last time I wrote about white bean and sausage soup.