True spinach is a fast cool-season green in Florida, ready in about six to eight weeks. It only does well in the coolest months, so timing is everything; once the weather warms it gives out. For summer greens, UF/IFAS points gardeners to Swiss chard or to warm-season stand-ins such as New Zealand and Malabar spinach.1
When to plant spinach in Florida
Region
Months on the UF/IFAS calendar
North Florida
Januarytransplant with care · Februarytransplant with care · Marchtransplant with care · Septembertransplant with care · Octobertransplant with care · Novembertransplant with care · Decembertransplant with care
Planting windows differ between UF/IFAS sources. The Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (SP 103) table gives October to November in North Florida, September to March in Central Florida and October to February in South Florida. The UF/IFAS Florida Fresh planting tool and the Vegetable Production Handbook chapter both give September to March for North and Central Florida and October to February for South Florida. The guide rates spinach as a crop that survives transplanting only with care. The production handbook's row spacing for commercial fields is 12 to 36 inches.
The vegetable guide's general advice for leafy vegetables applies: they benefit from side dressings of a nitrogen fertilizer during the season. No spinach-specific home rate was found.
Grows best only in the coolest months and matures quickly. For warm-season greens, the guide recommends New Zealand spinach or Swiss chard instead.
Aphids, beetles and caterpillars: The insect groups for which the UF/IFAS Vegetable Production Handbook (a commercial guide) lists labeled controls on spinach.
Downy mildew, powdery mildew and white rust: Leaf diseases for which the commercial handbook lists spinach fungicides.
Alternaria, anthracnose, Stemphylium and Pythium: Also listed in the handbook's spinach fungicide table. These come from a production guide, not a home-garden document.
Neither source gives spinach its own entry; this rating rests on what they say about leafy greens as a group. FAO says leafy greens do extremely well and have low nutrient demand (p. 92), that many leafy greens prefer cooler conditions around 14 to 20 C and bolt and turn bitter at 26 C and above (p. 91), and mentions spinach only in passing as a winter leafy vegetable (p. 179). SRAC 454 calls floating raft systems ideal for leafy greens.
What this lesson doesn't cover yet
No UF/IFAS home-garden page for spinach was found (the Gardening Solutions spinach URL returns 404), so sun, soil pH and watering are null.
North Florida planting window conflicts: SP 103 says October to November; Florida Fresh and the production handbook say September to March.
Pest and disease names come from the commercial Vegetable Production Handbook's pesticide tables, not from a home-garden pest list.
Your county extension office and its Florida Master Gardeners can fill these in for your garden.