In the vegetable garden

Credit: Carolyn Herriot

Purple Amaranth

I always get admiring comments when I grow this purple amaranth in the garden. No wonder as the sight of the purple seed-ladened spires is stunning! Amaranth is an ancient high protein crop; if you look closely you will see the grains maturing as brown specks on the spire. It’s easy to harvest amaranth; when the spires turn brown simply thresh them into a wheelbarrow to release the mature grains. Sweet Lorane Favas
Here’s a green manure crop that grows during winter that will feed both you and the soil. These legumes fix nitrogen at the same time as producing bumper crops of small, tasty fava beans, that can be eaten fresh or dried. Now that I have finished harvesting ‘Sweet Lorane’ fava beans you can see what I mean by bumper crop. All these beans came from a 6’ x 4’patch!