Amaranthus cruentus
Amaranth, red amaranth, Inca wheat, love-lies-bleeding: its name comes from the Greek amarantos, “that which does not fade” — its flower heads indeed retain their color for months after drying. A staple food of pre-Columbian civilizations, it offers gardeners two harvests in one: its leaves, like spinach, and its seeds, like a pseudocereal.
Characteristics:
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Spectacular flower heads: upright or drooping, in deep reds that persist for a long time.
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Dual-purpose: foliage eaten like spinach, seeds harvested like a cereal.
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Fast-growing: vigorous annual, reaching up to 1.50 m in a single season.
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Highly adaptable: tolerates drought and various soil types.
Precautions:
- Like spinach, its leaves contain oxalates and nitrates: blanch them in boiling water before cooking, and avoid eating large quantities raw.
- It self-seeds very easily: pull out unwanted young plants in spring if you do not want it to spread.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: sunny, with plenty of warmth.
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Soil: ordinary, loose, and well-drained. Undemanding, it tolerates poor soil and drought once established, but cool soil enriched with compost produces more abundant, tender foliage.
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Method: no stratification required. Sow in spring once all risk of frost has passed, on the surface or barely covered — the seeds are tiny and need light. See how to sow your seeds.
Care advice:
- Thin to 40 cm apart. Water regularly during dry periods if you are aiming for foliage; for seeds, it can manage on its own.
Harvesting advice:
- Pick the young leaves throughout the summer as needed, starting from the bottom.
- For the seeds, cut the flower heads when they begin to shed seeds when rubbed, dry them on a sheet, then rub them. A single plant can produce tens of thousands of seeds.
Beneficial combinations:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its abundant seeds provide a major food source for seed-eating birds in autumn and winter — goldfinches, greenfinches, and sparrows flock to it if you leave the flower heads standing.
- Its flowers are visited by many small insects, and its dense foliage shelters beneficial insects.
Uses:
- Leaves blanched and then cooked like spinach; seeds cooked as porridge, popped like miniature popcorn, or ground into gluten-free flour. Dried flower heads make long-lasting decorative bouquets.
Symbolism:
A sacred plant of the Aztecs, who used it in their rituals, it symbolizes immortality — its unfading flower made it, in ancient Greece, an emblem of that which never dies.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Nothing could be simpler: the harvest takes care of itself. Leave a few flower heads to ripen fully on the plant, then rub them over a container and winnow to separate the chaff. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, test them for germination rates, and carefully sort and package them, without any chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
An Aztec plant that is decorative, nourishing, and generous with its seeds.
