Color for a Salad!

[digitS']

I think orach has a better flavor than its cousin spinach.

More colorful, too!

This is my second season with Red Orach, thanks to @ninnymary . I have had Purple Orach for years. The red volunteered in the shade from last year's mother plants and is just about at its peak, right now. The purple is mostly out in the full sun and is finished for the year.

There was plenty of lettuce in more sunny garden locations to go with the orach the last week or so. The lettuce in the picture will need another week.

The plants are in a potato bed and one of those is there in the background. For some reason, I have some spuds flowering while others are just emerging.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Pretty color Steve! Glad you like it.

Mary

 

[so lucky]

I didn't have good luck with orach last year. Do you suppose it will grow now in a shadier part of my garden this late in the season? I think I still have some seeds in the freezer.

 

[digitS']

This is the purple and I have posted this picture before. It kind of shows how densely the volunteers will show up if the mother plant is just left to her own devices .

I do like orach, Mary. It really does taste spinach ... just a little better ... and every bit as tender.

It's an awfully easy way for me to grow them. Leave a plant or 2 in a convenient place. By early spring, hundreds of seedlings will appear. They transplant fairly easily. I like to have them with the potatoes. That bed will be prepped in the fall. I will place the seed potatoes fairly far apart in early spring. Orach can go in amongst them.

I've saved seed from the red, last year. If I still have some presence of mind, I'd like to sow seeds in late July and see how they do as a fall crop. Seed from this year's plants won't be mature until fall and I have never felt I needed to bother with saving seeds, @so lucky . They are such an independent species .

Lettuce has failed twice, sown in mid to late summer. The heat probably suppresses growth. Then, cooling temperatures just shut lettuce down. Lettuce must need an inspirational niche. That is okay. Maybe I'll just have a spinach, I mean (!), an Orach fall salad.

Steve

 

[baymule]

Would orach grow in Texas heat? I used to raise lettuce in the winter (haven't tried any since moving)

 

[digitS']

Do you have lamb's quarters?

I'm reluctant to mention it. Yes, it's also related ... but so is quinoa.

When does lamb's quarters show up as a weed?

Steve

 

[so lucky]

I think I read that lettuce seed needs cooler temps to germinate. Either that or I dreamed it.

 

[digitS']

Mine sprouted, grew into tiny plants, and then shut down.

I think I tried it at two different times in late summer.

My guess, the heat was suppressing its growth early and the cold was suppressing it late. It never "took off" but mostly just sat there and never reached a useful size.

Steve

 

[baymule]

I don't think I have lambs quarters....