Gardensong » greens http://gardensong.net Getting your garden growing! Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:22:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Growing Amaranth for Greens or Grain http://gardensong.net/growing-amaranth-for-greens-or-grain-31/ http://gardensong.net/growing-amaranth-for-greens-or-grain-31/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:37:15 +0000 Garden Grrrl http://gardensong.net/growing-amaranth-for-greens-or-grain/ Amaranth
Kelly at Planet Green writes about her adventure buying Amaranth greens at her local farmers market in
Try a New Vegetable: Amaranth. It’s true that calling it “pig weed” doesn’t make it sound very appetizing, but those pigs are onto something. Amaranth is tasty and easy to grow. Some varieties are grown for their nutritious greens while others have been bred to produce high yields seeds, which are tasty eaten as porridge or like rice. Still other species of Amaranth are grown for their exotic looking flower heads, particularly the old fashioned variety also known as “love-lies-bleeding.”

Amaranth is an easy to grow summer annual. In fact, in many parts of the country members of the genus grow as weeds as the name “pig weed” indicates. I wouldn’t recommend trying to grow it to harvest the seeds unless you have an exceptionally large garden, but the greens and flowers could both be pleasant additions to the home garden.

(Photo by Andedam used under creative commons license.)

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