Thursday, October 28, 2004

RIP amaranth

As I say in my profile, cooking has led me in directions I would not have considered otherwise. Gardening is the latest of these. The idea of having a wonderful Asian garden out on my deck is so tempting, even though the produce at the Asian supermarket is usually pretty good. I would love to have a garden that was part edibles and part plants for butterflies and hummingbirds.

When I visited my parents on Cape Cod last month, my mother sent me home with two pots of mint and a book about container gardening for edibles. Not covered in the book, but available in seed packets at the Asian supermarket, was amaranth, otherwise known as Chinese spinach. Perhaps foolishly, I planted some amaranth seeds, even though it's fall and probably a little late for that kind of thing.

The amaranth seedlings did ok for a while, but yesterday, one shriveled up and died suddenly. The other one is doing the same today. They had seemed to be doing fine, but I guess I was wrong. I'll wait to plant more seeds until next spring. I guess it's part of the perils of a newbie gardener getting religion in the fall.

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