Amaranth seedlings can easily be blocked from emergence by a thin crust on the soil formed after a rain. Selecting soils that are lower in clay and managing the seedbed to minimize the chance of crusting can help ensure a good harvest. Amaranth is very easy to grow. It is fairly maintenance-free, but its slow initial growth leaves it susceptible to competition among weeds until it is established. Amaranth prefers a warm climate, full sun, and well-drained soil.
It will grow tall and can top 5 feet high. Flowers are produced on long straight stems, are long-lasting, and will bloom from mid-summer until the first hard frost. Growing amaranth varieties that have purple or red leaves also simplifies weeding.
Amaranth appears to be fairly slow-growing at first, but it can be very drought tolerant once established. It can successfully be grown in areas with less than 10 inches of yearly rainfall. Once the plants reach about one foot in height, they start growing rapidly and quickly shade out any remaining weeds.
Amaranth is a fairly low maintenance crop, but care should be taken early to ensure they stand a good chance of establishing.
Pick individual leaves as needed for greens. Younger greens are great for salad; older greens are better cooked as a substitute for spinach. Seed will often ripen many weeks before the first hard frost, usually after about three months from planting time. The best way to determine if the seed can be harvested is to gently but briskly shake or rub the flower heads between your hands to see if the seeds fall readily.
Numerous small and appreciative birds may give hints as to when to start doing this. The best time to harvest the amaranth grain is on a dry day 3 to 7 days after a hard frost.
An easy way to gather the grain is to bend the plants over a bucket and rub the seedheads between your hands.
Only the dehydrated seeds will come out this way, so do a second harvest a week or so later to catch any remaining seeds that were not ready the first time. We like to rub the flower heads onto a screen set on a wheelbarrow. The finer chaff can then be blown off the screen. Amaranth resembles lamb's-quarters and amaranth resembles red-rooted pigweed, especially in the early stages of growth, so it is best to sow seed in rows to make weeding less confusing.
Sowing amaranth cultivars with purple leaves also simplifies weeding. Since seed is small, you can avoid considerable thinning by mixing it with sand or radish seed before sowing, as is sometimes done with carrots. Amaranth and quinoa are low-maintenance crops but weeds, especially at the beginning, should be discouraged by cultivation or mulching. Heirloom seeds are the gardeners choice for seed-saving from year-to-year.
Learning to save seeds is easy and fun with these books. Before you harvest, consider which varieties you might want to save seeds from so that your harvesting practice includes plants chosen for seed saving. Be sure to check out our newest seed packs, available now from Heirloom Organics.
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Seed Catalogs. Heirloom Organic. Seed will often ripen many weeks before that, usually after about three months. The best way to determine if seed is harvestable is to gently but briskly shake or rub the flower heads between your hands and see if the seeds fall readily. Numerous small and appreciative birds may give hints as to when to start doing this.
An easy way to gather ripe grain is, in dry weather, to bend the plants over a bucket and rub the seedheads between your hands.
My own preferred threshing method is to rub the flowerheads through screening into a wheelbarrow and then to blow away the finer chaff using my air compressor. Cutting and hanging plants to dry indoors does not work very well: the plants become extremely bristly and it is difficult to separate the seed from the chaff. Cut the seedheads just before they become dry and brittle.
Lay the seedheads on a cloth or place them inside paper or cloth bags with heads down and leave in the shade to finish drying. When the seedheads are dry, the seeds can be removed in several ways: by rubbing gently with your hands wearing gloves is recommended , by enclosing the seedheads between two cloths and treading on top without shoes on, by beating the seedheads inside of a bag, or by beating seedheads together over a cloth.
Adapts to most soils, but grows best in fertile, well-drained loam. Amaranth seeds need warm soil to germinate and can be damaged by spring frosts, so wait until the soil has begun to warm to plant this crop. Mature plants are easier to harvest after a light frost in the fall. Before planting, amend the soil with a light application of a balanced organic fertilizer. Single Plants: 1' 11" 60cm each way minimum Rows: 1' 5" 45cm with 2' 11" 90cm row gap minimum.
Plant from mid spring to early summer by sowing seeds barely covered with soil in uniform rows. Keep soil moist until the seedlings sprout. In fact, excessive nitrogen often found in fertilizers can cause the plants to become leggy and less suitable for harvesting.
Varieties of amaranth can range from giants topping 8 feet tall, to smaller 1- to 2-foot plants better suited for leaf harvest only. You should cultivate larger plants specifically grown for their seeds if you want the amaranth grain.
Some popular varieties include:. Thanks to their plentiful seeds, amaranth plants will readily self-seed in the garden. As they sprout in spring, the volunteers can be thinned out to about 10 to 18 inches apart, or carefully dug up and transplanted elsewhere. It's also possible to collect some of the seeds in the fall and replant them the following spring.
Be aware, though, that if the original plants were hybrids, the volunteer seedlings may not "come true" and can look different than the parent plant. When planting amaranth outdoors, sow seeds about 4 inches apart, barely covering them with soil. Germination generally takes seven to 14 days. As they sprout, thin the plants out to a spacing of 10 to 18 inches.
If starting seeds indoors, you can use a general seed-starting mix and make sure to harden off the seedlings before transplanting them outdoors. The average outdoor temperature needs to reach about 55 degrees Fahrenheit before you can successfully plant the seedlings outdoors.
You can harvest both the leaves and grains from any amaranth, but if your goal is an edible plant, choose a variety specialized for that. Some types of amaranth are marketed as best for seed production, while others are bred for their attractive, tasty leaves. Regardless of your cultivar, amaranth leaves can be harvested at any point.
Small leaves are more tender, but the larger leaves boast a fuller flavor. When harvesting the plant's leaves, make sure to leave the crown intact, as well as some leaves around the top, so the plant can continue to grow. Alternately, you can also cut the whole plant off at ground level when it is between 1 and 2 feet tall.
To harvest amaranth grains, let the plant go all the way to flower. Keep an eye on the flowers as they bloom and begin to die back. Before they all turn brown, cut the flowers off and place them in bags, where they will dry.
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