Background

With increasingly unpredictable weather, it is important that we diversify the range of foods grown in our gardens.

Amaranth is an alternative crop grown worldwide for both its grains and leaves. In the UK, we are familiar with seeing it as the ornamental ‘Love lies bleeding’ but many multicultural communities on allotments in the UK grow similar varieties to this and harvest them for the leaves.

This trial compared 3 home saved heritage varieties of amaranth. 72 people grew the crop in locations around the UK ranging from Cornwall to Perthshire and monitored the growth of the plants, took harvests and did a taste test.

Aim

The aim was to compare the 3 varieties in a range of locations and evaluate whether amaranth was a practical leafy crop for people to grow.

Findings

Amaranth was productive as a leafy crop, producing on average, just under a kilo of leaves per square metre plot over a 2 – 3 month harvesting period. Some people produced a lot more than this.

Growers as far north as Perthshire were able to produce reasonable yields. Although amaranth is traditionally grown in hotter climates, it produces yields very quickly so can be grown in locations that only have a very short growing season.

Amaranth was virtually free of pests and diseases. Nothing affected the crop during the summer when it was growing, whilst other leafy crops were suffering from a range of pests including caterpillars, aphids, flea beetle and leaf miner.

The vast majority of people (90%) found the taste very pleasant, pleasant or acceptable, with around a third stating that it had a slightly ‘grassy’ taste.

Just over half of the participants would consider growing it again. The lack of pests and diseases and productivity were common positive attributes mentioned.

When it came to choice of varieties, it was interesting that although there was a clear preference for Mrs McGhie, a significant minority also chose the other varieties. This highlights the importance of maintaining a diverse collection to suit different locations, environments and cultural preferences. This is in line with the advice of the IPCC report on food security that stresses the importance of maintaining a diverse collection of seed varieties in order to tackle the future challenges of climate change.

Read the full report here.