Red Malabar Spinach | Basella rubra
A spinach substitute that beats the heat!
A beautiful and tasty heat-tolerant edible ornamental. Native to tropical regions in Asia, this vigorous climbing vine serves as the perfect spinach substitute when the weather heats up. The succulent, deep green leaves of Malabar Spinach can be eaten raw in salads, sautéed, or used to thicken soups, stews, and curries. Red Malabar’s vining habit, gorgeous red-purple stems, sweet pink flowers, and rich purple-black berries are very attractive; grow this vine for a quick privacy screen or as part of an edible landscaping plan. The berries are edible (although not super flavorful), and they make a wonderful deep-purple dye for food or textiles.
Direct sow 6" apart as soon after all danger of frost has passed, or start indoors 5-6 weeks before. Provide support for the vigorous vines to climb. Pinching back the vine tips encourages branching. Leaves can be harvested individually throughout the season and cooked or eaten raw as a pleasant, heat-tolerant spinach alternative; the edible berries make a wonderful deep-purple dye for food or textiles.
Days to Germination 10-21
Days to Maturity 70
Planting Depth 1/4"
Spacing in Row 6"
Spacing Between Rows 36"
Height at Maturity 84"
Width at Maturity 10"
Sun Preference Full Sun
To give an overall cultural sense of where this beautiful plant comes from, Svabhu Kohli has created a digital illustration of a scene from a quaint village in the Malabar district of India, where the vines are growing over an old traditional home, with an old step well in front of the house and a lady collecting the Malabar leaves, soon to prepare a delicious recipe.
About Hudson Valley Seed Company
They are a values-driven seed company that practices and celebrates responsible seed production and stewardship. Hudson Valley are best known for their beautiful artist-design seed packs (Art Packs) that appeal to gardeners, gift buyers, and lovers of art and nature.
These Art Packs, most fundamentally, tell stories. Hudson Valley challenges artists to convey in a manner that is fully their own, the history and meaning of the seed variety contained in each pack. These stories were once integral to traditional societies-stories of seeds were often origin stories for entire communities and peoples, and the lore and beliefs that accumulated around seed varieties reflected the nearly familial way in which gardeners and farmers regarded their crops. Our society is, by and large, no longer connected to plants this way. But we like to think these Art Packs help to stitch our fragmented world back together: useful seeds, evocative art, both equally valuable to our experience of being human.