Monday, June 20, 2011

Climbing spinach adds earthiness to salad

My friend Joan gave me a few seeds earlier in the spring for vegetables I had not planted

before, including a climbing spinach called Malabar. I love spinach and never seem to get enough to satisfy from my garden so I decided to plant this in a pot that I could keep on the step leading to my kitchen. I’ve been watching it grow for a couple of months and the pot is now filled with thick, shiny, green leaves with red stems. Some of the leaves have also turned a deep, greenish pink. It’s a beautiful vegetable that, if nothing else, is quite pleasing to the eye next to the flowers I put into another pot.

Today I decided to pick some of the leaves and add them to my lunch salad. Biting into them is satisfying because of their bulk and earthy flavor. So I searched for more information about this plant. It turns out that it’s tropical so it likes heat and should produce that wonderful flavor all summer. The nutritional value of this beautiful plant is also impressive. While being a low-calorie vegetable it is also high in Vitamin A with a good amount of Vitamin C, calcium and iron.

I just checked to see if I have more seeds. I might commandeer another pot and plant more. I don’t think I can go wrong with beauty, taste and nutrition all in one easy-to-grow plant.

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