Haskins Garden Centre is encouraging gardeners to make the most of their homegrown spinach with a revitalizing and nutritious spinach smoothie.

Alasdair Urquhart, Haskins’ in-house plant expert, commented: “Spinach is brilliant at surviving the winter and bouncing back in April. It’s one of those plants that you can keep picking a handful of leaves and within a week or so there will be new ones to re-harvest.”

“Even if you haven’t had time to grow your own spinach, you can still follow our step-by-step recipe for a spinach smoothie.”

Ingredients (serves one)

• 2 handfuls of spinach leaves
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 orange
• water as needed

Method

1. Peel the banana, apple and orange and cut into slices or separate into segments. 
2. Place in the blender.
3. Wash spinach leaves and add to blender.
4. Add water as needed.
5. Blend until smooth and serve.

Alasdair added: “This healthy smoothie is perfect for spring cleaning your digestive system and contains really simple ingredients for a powerful detox ahead of the summer months. What’s more, it’s so satisfying to use your own home-grown spinach and celebrate its ‘garden to plate’ journey.

“We recommend adding the orange because the addition of a citrus fruit will help increase the body’s ability to absorb many of the beneficial nutrients in spinach, including iron.”

Spinach is a nutrient-rich vegetable, containing high amounts of carotenoids, vitamin C, vitamin K, folic acid, iron and calcium, making it the perfect crop for a detox. Spinach also contains folate, niacin, riboflavin, and potassium.

To produce smoothies with a kick, Haskins recommends adding a Matcha Green Tea shot. This would provide a caffeine boost as well as provide additional anti-oxidants.

Haskins has centres in Ferndown in Dorset, West End in Southampton and Roundstone and Snowhill in West Sussex. For more information visit www.haskins.co.uk