I planted some Magenta Spreen (chenopodium giganteum) from Uprising Organics and some of it is ready for picking. I added a few sprigs to the salad greens I sold to Tweets Café today. This is how Uprising Organics describes it:
Very closely related to the common weed lambsquarters, it has a blush of shockingly iridescent magenta coloring around the growing tip and undersides of the leaves. The flavor is very dense and wild (like a mix of spinach and collards) and the plant contains three times the calcium of broccoli by weight. It thrives in summer heat and is indifferent to neglect. Though not nearly as invasive as its weedy relative, it will self sow if not removed before seed set. Pick growing tips and young leaves all season until flowering as a stunning salad highlight. A staple food in the Americas 4000 years ago before corn dominated the diet.
It can grow to eight feet and is known as tree spinach. Mine are still quite small. It grows to be a bush, so maybe it will make a good hedgerow. It supposedly seeds easily, so I may be able to make a permanent row of it. Other names for it are Purple Goosefoot and Giant Lambsquarters.
- Chenopodium Giganteum ~ Wikipeda
- A leafy green named magenta spreen ~ Washington Post
- Magenta Spreen: a superhero green ~ Loveplantlife.com
- Magenta Spreen Lambsquater ~ Rootsimple.com
- How to Save Magenta Spreen Lambsquarter Seeds aka Tree Spinach ~ John from Growing Your Greens