While weeding and planting in the garden this weekend, I was assured to see magenta spreen sprouts. It has an impressive name, Chenopodium giganteum, and giganteum these tiny sprouts are, though they have the tiniest of seeds, smaller than cabbage seeds, finer than poppy seeds, and yet, somehow, these tiny, tiny, tiny seeds, sleep through the winter, survive without being eaten, (maybe being tiny, tiny, tiny helps, “Not worth a nibble,” the passing bugs say) wake up, and put on a dazzling display of pink, purple, magenta and green.

Over the summer they will grow much taller than I am, and in the fall send their tiny, tiny, tiny seeds raining down onto the warm earth, where they will snuggle in for another long, winter’s sleep, and wake up the following May.

I like magenta spreen because it is a plant I don’t have to plant. A no-fuss plant, it grows and grows, sending out new shoots no matter how many times you harvest its lovely leaves.