Water Culture Method for Water Spinach: Just Master These 4 Steps

Water spinach is a common vegetable on many family dinner tables, but did you know? Water spinach can actually be grown in water culture, so how do you grow water spinach in water culture? What is the method? What are the steps?

Step 1

Sprouting

Water spinach seeds have a thick and hard seed coat, so sowing them directly makes germination slow. It is best to sprout them first. Soak the seeds in warm water at about 30°C for 18—20 hours. After soaking, strain them out, rinse them several times with clean water, and then sprout them.

For sprouting, you can simply wrap them in a cloth bag or gauze, keep the temperature at about 25°C, and stop sprouting when about 75% of the seeds have split open and shown white.

Step 2

Sowing

Find a relatively large flower pot, water it thoroughly, then evenly scatter the sprouted seeds in the pot and cover with 1-2 cm of soil. After that, frequently use a spray bottle to mist water and keep the soil moist to help the seedlings emerge.

Step 3

Planting

1. Choosing equipment: You can use buckets, basins, water tanks, and similar items as growing containers, use discarded foam boards and the like as floating rafts, and use discarded sponges, wheat straw, and similar materials to secure the seedlings.

2. Planting and management: When the seedlings grow to 4-5 leaves, they can be planted. Poke holes in the floating raft, secure 2-3 seedlings in the holes with sponge, and let them float on the water surface. To make the water spinach grow vigorously, you can also add an appropriate amount of nitrogen fertilizer to the water, with urea being best, and frequently add water to the container.

Step 4

Harvesting

Water spinach is a vegetable crop that can be harvested many times. When the seedlings reach about 30 cm tall, they can be picked. For the first harvest, leave two nodes at the base to encourage side vines to sprout. For later harvests, the harvesting standard and the number of nodes left are the same as for the first harvest. Do not leave too many nodes, otherwise too many side vines will develop, nutrients will be spread out, and quality and yield will be affected.

In addition, after each harvest, an appropriate amount of nitrogen fertilizer can be added.

Water spinach can generally be eaten by most people, but because water spinach is cold in nature, people who are frail, have weak spleen and stomach, low blood pressure, or cold stomach should still eat less of it!