Today I was in the garden trying to tame a plant that had overstepped it’s bounds. I remember the day I spied this plant at one of the nursery centers I go to. It boasted an ability to grow even in the heat and humidity of summer. In answer to my questions, the nursery worker commented that it did indeed grow abundantly and would even reseed itself in the garden year after happy year. However she should have put a small, but polite disclaimer on this certain plant. It would have been good had she added to the end of her glowing description. “A’hem, however, it is a bit of an acquired taste.” That way I would have at least been warned about the consequences of inviting this bold aggressor into my garden. I am talking about a plant I have mentioned in several posts as a durable summer grower: Malabar Spinach.
I think it is the spinach in the name that is so appealing. It leads one to think they don’t have to say good bye to the cool season spinach but can enjoy it’s close cousin on into the heat of summer. Don’t be fooled! Looking forward to it’s debut and growth in my garden, I harvested and proudly added my “new” spinach to a toss salad. My family informed me that they would henceforth never be eating any salad that included this new addition. I am not one that gives up easily, as you might have noticed, so I decided to add it cooked in a vegetable soup. After all my family likes collard greens. How different could this be? Well, first of all who likes soup in the middle of summer? Second of all, the slimy noxious overwhelmingly sour taste of the Malabar spinach infused every part of that soup. Yuck! After a failed attempt at adding it to a smoothie I decided it would be better off as rabbit feed. Except the rabbits did not agree. Neither did the chickens. Now, when chickens turn down something, anything green, you know it is bad. By the time I came to the realization that I should never have invited this plant into my garden, it’s roots were taking up needed moisture and it’s tendrils were rapping around everything it could reach. I chopped, I pulled, I tugged, then I went to get some muscle. We had two choices; put it in the dumpster by the community garden or haul it to the chicken yard where surely the chickens would dispose of it. We ended up with the chicken yard option because we didn’t think we could lift the massive plant from the ground to the dumpster. There it sits in the chicken yard tonight in a massive heap untouched by the chickens. So if you see something with spinach tacked on the end of it, that boasts an ability to grow right through the heat of the summer and seems just too good to be true; it is.
This post was shared at Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop and From the Farm Hop and Simple Saturday’s Blog Hop
Oh, I know about invasive plants. I purchased some gooseneck loosestrife because it is a perennial. It does have pretty flowers–and it covers the ground and nudges out every thing else. I have to keep digging up advancing roots. The other plant/tree that keeps invading my yard are volunteer hawthorne trees. I guess the birds are distributing seeds. These trees sprout in every open crevice of land in our yard and grow amazingly fast. Never a dull moment in the garden.
I like sorrel. I put it into my noodle soup. I suppose I can do the same with Malabar spinach. A little bit of sour taste in my noodle soup is really amazing. LOL
I agree about it’s invasiveness. My husband wanted to try the red stem variety after planting New Zealand spinach a couple of years ago, which the latter reseeds itself every year here in north central Arkansas. Last year, after seeing how the first malabar vine grew and grew with it’s profusion of berries, I knew it was going to be invasive. I started nipping off all the flowering stems and putting them in a bag to be put in the landfill. It’s difficult to keep up with as it produces so many fruits. This year, against my advice, he planted two seedlings. One vine is more than enough. So, while he was on a business trip, I cut down the second plant. I only prepare it like cooked spinach and have used both mentioned plants in quiches. Beware of both plants as each can reseed and malabar can be a perennial in milder areas of the USA. Malabar is on the invasive species list in much of southeast Asia and Australia.