Spinach that thinks it's out of Africa

I've got to confess, I have no idea what to do with my beet spinach now the season is finished. The Guardian gardening guide calls it perpetual spinach and with that kind of moniker you imagine it going on for all eternity. The pigeons in my garden are very fond of it and would like that. But looking at it today - it seems to have spent the autumn turning itself into a Baobab tree.

Given my innate inability to grow any kind of root vegetable (see Salsify/Dahlia Yams etc) it's sod's law that the one thing I don't grow for its rooty bulk turns into an enormous trunk that could feed most of Surbiton* *provided you could put in Waitrose Essentials packaging and stick it on the shelf in their Claremont Road store.**

**actually, that might be a hoot. Harvest it and go and slip it in with the veg displays and see if anybody bought it. All you'd have to do is add a half-convincing shelf-talker, such as: 'As seen on the Food programme.

But does 'perpetual' mean you can keep it going from year to year like perennial cabbage? Or is it just another way of saying 'cut and come again'? Looking at mine I was reminded of this African beauty...

Someone estimated its age at close to 1000 years. Now that's what I call perpetual...