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| Pigweed - Go Hogs, Go. Sooie. |
Working on my plant/weed identification skills, I learned that the plant belongs to the amaranth family. Long ago, when I was buying every Rodale book in print, I read about the prophet's dedication to amaranth. He advocated grain amaranth as a solution for world hunger and bad nutrition. Amaranth is a big family, including Gregg's Amaranth - amaranthus greggii.
The seeds of pigweed can be harvested and roasted. The leaves are substitutes for spinach during the hot summer, when spinach bolts and becomes bitter.
I have a beautiful specimen near my back fence. The plant seems to have grown to four feet in height almost overnight. I walk to the back and clear out unwanted plants from time to time, so I know this happened quickly.
As you can see from the photo above, the leaves are somewhat like goosefoot, but they lack the tinge of white near the stem and have red in the stem and roots. Recent research on the Net shows that pigweed can grow on poor soil but grows riotously on good soil. This plant is a few feet from the compost, headquarters of my red wigglers, where they meet, date, and circulate into the our backyards.
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| Goosefoot is much more goosefooty than redroot pigweed. This plant is also called lamb's quarters. According to Joan Richardson’s Wild Edible Plants of New England, lambsquarters “even outclasses spinach as a storehouse of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamin C, and great amounts of vitamin A, not to mention all the minerals pulled out of the earth by its strong taproot.” |
Heat and Cold
Some are wondering, "Why pick on spinach? Everyone wants to substitute for spinach."
Gardeners do not always consider the growing characteristics of their favorite plants. Many are stunned than green plants can survive, thrive, and even improve in the cold.
Spinach and peas love the cold. The cabbage family loves the cold and improves after a frost (Brussels sprouts). Green kale can be dug out of the snow and eaten - not fresh frozen and rotting, but cold and loving it.
I heard gardeners say they will plant peas on Good Friday, because that is the traditional day. I tell them, "No plant them as soon as you can. It may even snow on them."
"Snow on peas? Isn't that bad?"
"Not on snow peas." I try to explain how some plants have their own anti-freeze, enjoying the looks of astonishment. I spent an entire Minnesota winter telling one nurse (on various visits) that my spinach starts, buried in snow and ice, would emerge in the spring and be the best in the area. "No, not this winter. No they are dead. Wait until spring." And in the spring, the spinach emerged from snow and ice to thrive in the damp cold rain and produce before the insects thought of attacking it.
Spinach is best when packed with moisture and crunchy, so that is the way to have the salad at its best and ruin the idea of grocery store spinach forever.
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| Spinach rows - thin by eating. |