Planting Malabar Spinach

Last year we planted a new crop in the garden.  Russ brought it home from the nursery that he worked at and we planted it and it flourished.  If you've been following the blog, you'll remember that in THIS POST we showed you how we saved the seeds from our very first crop of Malabar spinach.  I planted some seeds in some seed pots to later transplant into the garden.  I wasn't sure if the germination rate was going to be high so I put a number of seeds into each pot.

Malabar Spinach

Well, as the above picture illustrates, almost all of the seeds germinated and it was time to transplant them into the garden.  I'm planting them against a panel of concrete reinforcement fence so that it can trellis upward on the panel.

Malabar spinach is indigenous to Asia and Africa, so it does well in South Louisiana's tropical climate.  It will climb 30 feet in length and puts out heart-shaped leaves that have the texture of spinach that are good to eat. Below you can see the a few of the seedlings that I have transplanted into the garden soil.  they are healthy little plants that should do well.

Transplanted Malabar Squash seedlings

As I was planting them, I looked down and realized that I really didn't need to plant any seeds.  There were seedlings coming up volunteer (on their own) from seeds that had dropped off of last year's vines.  We have several plants that self propagate like that, including basil, cilantro, and sweet potatoes.  You can see the leaf below has a 'rubbery' texture like spinach does.  

"Volunteer" malabar spinach

There are several other names that this plant goes by, including Red Vine spinach.  If you look at the very first picture, you can see why.  The vines or stem of this plant is a reddish color that stands out.  It is also called a vine spinach and a climbing vine spinach, but it is not related to the spinach plant we're familiar with. It is a fast growing plant that will yield plenty of leaves for our consumption.

According to what I've read, it is a nutritious plant that provides lots of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium, and iron.  It also provides lots of fiber and is has antioxidant properties.  It is frequently stir fried in Chinese and Vietnamese dishes and used in curries in Indian dishes.

I'll show you updates on the Malabar spinach as it grows and we harvest it.  Let me know if anyone would like some seeds as I'll be happy to share.