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Amaranth Edible Red Leaf Seed
Amaranthus - tricolor
$1.59

Item #0146

This heat-loving summer green is even more nutritious than spinach or beet greens! With its coleus appearance, it is showy enough for flowerbeds. With its heat tolerance, it will give you sweet and slightly tangy salad greens well into summer when your spring crops have been harvested or have bolted. Incredibly versatile, you can steam it like spinach, stir-fry it, or sautee it. Try mixing the leaves with spaghetti sauce, rice, meatloaf, or use it whenever your Chinese cookbook calls for spinach. Just like our Amaranth Burgundy. (in the flower section) you can also harvest the seeds to eat as a grain. The seeds have a huge 20% protein and rank 75 out of 100 as a complete protein, which is higher than milk, soybeans, or whole wheat. The foliage is very nutritious. High in vitamin A, C, iron, calcium and protein. Can be grown in full sun or partial shade.

When to plant outside: When soil temperatures are warm. It grows fastest when warm. It will germinate in cool soils, though. You have nothing to lose by early spring sowing (particularly if you are growing it for the seed grains which takes 90-110 days).

When to start inside: Not recommended. It does not transplant well.

Special Sowing & Germination Instructions: Easy to grow from seed. If growing for salad mix only (not to be cooked like spinach), seeds can be sown up to 60 seeds per foot and leaves picked individually.

Harvesting: Foliage: You can begin harvesting leaves when plant is greater than 4? tall. Or, you can wait until the plant is mature (between 9 and 7 weeks) and harvest the whole plant (the iron content doubles between the 7th and 9th week). Grain: Wait until seeds are mature and dry. Pull up plant and hang upside down in a warm, dry place. When completely dry, shake seed heads into a paper bag. Seeds should be stored in an airtight container until you are ready to cook them or grind into flour.

Container Tips: May be grown in a container with 12" diameter. One plant per container.