FREE: 5 Red vine Malabar spinach seeds (Basella rubra)

The listing, 5 Red vine Malabar spinach seeds (Basella rubra) has ended.

Malabar Spinach, Red Vine Spinach, Creeping Spinach, Climbing Spinach Basella rubra.

The plant has many names and is native to the East Indies. It is a vigorous, climbing, tropical vine as (1) an annual leafy vegetable for cultivation of its edible spinach-like stems and leaves or (2) as an ornamental foliage vine. This is a fast-growing tropical vine that, if trained on a support, will rise to 6' tall in a single season. Although in a different family than spinach, the leaves taste like spinach and, unlike spinach, the plants thrive in hot summer weather. Leaves and stems are a good source of Vitamins A and C, calcium and iron.

Malabar spinach grows eight to ten feet tall and wide and produces inconspicuous white-tinged pink flowers in its leaf axils. Upon fertilization, the flowers develop into small, highly ornamental, single-seeded purple berries. The juice from the berries is so intensely purple that it puts beet juice to shame. It's used as a natural food colorant for agar (vegetable "gelatine") dishes, sweets, and pastries.
'Red Stem/Vine' features showy red stems clad with thick, glossy, heart-shaped, medium green leaves.Malabar spinach excels in warm, tropical areas, where it can easily grow a foot per day. It's intolerant of any chills; thus, the only regions in the U.S. where it would be perennial are the Deep South or southern Florida. Gardeners in colder climates can grow it as an annual.


Grows well indoors too!

If you use GIN I will DOUBLE the seeds!

All Listia rules apply!