Amaranthus cruentus/Amaranthus caudatus
Tall, leafy, with fluffy tassels of flowers, amaranth is a plant that should have more friends. A staple part of the Aztec diet (until they suffered their own Spanish-powered apocalypse), amaranth’s vitamin-packed leaves cook like spinach, but without all the fussing over that spinach needs.
Better, its protein-rich, quinoa-like seeds – which you either pop over heat like corn or boil in water and use as an ingredient in salads, risottos, breads and biscuits – contain the amino acid lysine, making amaranth one of the most complete vegetable proteins around.64 Unless the climate changes so much we can start large-scale growing of soya beans, anyone surviving the apocalypse in the UK should be all over amaranth.
There are two kinds to know about: Amaranthus cruentus, which has fairly upright flower tassels and is the type more usually grown as a leaf crop, and A. caudatus (aka love-lies-bleeding), which makes droopy, seedy cat’s tails of flower. Both like heat but don’t need it, and they are the least demanding of annuals: as long as the soil is warm and not soggy, they grow like billy from June, set flower in August and go to seed by mid-autumn. All of this makes them perfect for keeping the nutrition coming from space just vacated by broad beans or early potatoes.
Amaranth should germinate well if you rake it into fine-tilth soil outside in late June. But see how we said ‘should’? For a guaranteed harvest, have some module-grown plants as back-up. After you’ve planted out and harvested these, keep the bed free of weeds until late the following June: amaranth self-seeds pretty easily, so you should then find lots of seedlings popping up. Once they’re 10 cm high, transfer these to a new bed to grow on.