Malabar Spinach

Malabar spinach (Basella alba) is a fantastic easy to grow summer leafy green. You can eat the leaves young in salads, mature as a cooking green, and the young tendrils are often clipped and used stem and all for stir frys. They do have a musilangenous texture to them similiar to okra. Cooking it with high acid (like a squeeze of lemon juice or salad dressing) minimizes that effect. They can take a bit of time to germinate and is best direct sown or started outside once spring/summer heat has set in. Needs a trellis to climb but is not overly "aggressive" in its growth. Will reseed for the following year, I havent planted any on purpose for 4 or 5 years now and can count on it popping back up as soon as it is warm enough. Also used as a natural pigment or dye.

A small (1 g) packet has about 42 seeds

Good to start from seed in these months:

North Florida: April-May

Central Florida: March-June

South Florida: February-June