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But it isn't edible yet:
We bought a packet each of the red and green edible amaranth, but since we are shutting down the gardens in a couple of weeks in preparation for our return to the desert, I only planted a few seeds of the red, just to see what they would look like as we have never grown this before. The first few days the seedlings looked just like our purslane.
But now there is a clear difference:
Aside from a sweet potato slip, pictured to the left below, which pleasantly volunteered to grow all on its own, the other thing I'm growing in the home-made aeroponic planters I made out of ice cube bins from an old refrigerator are fenugreek sprouts.
Fenugreek seeds make a wonderful tea, and the leaves (aka Greek Hay!) are fast-growing and attractive. While the highly nutritious greens are not well-known as an edible in these parts, they are prized in Indian cooking, where they are called Methi and credited with purifying the blood, correcting blood sugar issues, helping with weight loss, reducing inflamation, and a host of other health benefits. The rich dark green leaves are chock full of vitamin B-complex and other nutrients.
Here is a lovely illustrated recipe for Aloo Methi, made with the colorful fenugreek leaves. In my photo below, you can see my home-made aeroponic planter. Nested inside a standard ice cube bin, the light blue cover is cut from a sturdy flexible kitchen cutting mat. The clear plastic tubing is from the pet store and is connected first to a check valve and then to a small external fish tank pump.
I used a standard office punch to make a hole in the mat, just the right size for the tubing to drop through. Bubbling inside the water is a small airstone, the kind used in a home acquarium. As you can tell from the "Snow Peas" label, the seedlings are secured in recycled AeroGarden plugs, but any kind of basket and "growing medium" will do. Don't you love the little water drops that show through the mat?
As noted, the plant on the left is a sweet potato slip and the fenugreek seedlings are on the right. We always have fenugreek sprouts on hand, so when I want to start new fenugreek plants, I just commandeer a few sprouts. Usually I grow them on a sunny window sill, but these are benefitting from the grow lights on our nearby AeroGardens.
Since first reading about English Pot Herbs grown to give medieval families a bit of green nourishment over the long dark months of winter, I have been fascinated by the purslane plant. At the time, however, I was altogether unaware that it was the same noxious weed that our parents expected us to pull out of the family garden all summer long when we would rather have been out playing. I used to argue endlessly with my parents about the definition of a weed, and now it turns out I was right all along.
Just a few years ago it was almost impossible to find any information about purslane online except for hints about how to get rid of it where it grew wild.
The fact that hubby love purslane as much as I do might even have been a key factor in our getting together. In any case we crowded together like two kittens at the milk bowl peering into the grow holes to examine the purslane seeds we planted in a grow hole in the AeroGarden Deluxe. Now this nutritious herb is as ubiquitous online as it is masquerading as a weed in everyone's garden. The main reason is that it is acknowledged to have more beneficial Omega-3 than any other vegetable. We also happen to love the taste.
But since throughout our long years of apartment dwelling the only purslane we managed to see was the occasional clump tenaciously clinging to life between the cracks of some sidewalk, we always thought of this succulent as a drought-resistant plant and wondered if it would do well growing in a liquid culture. Click on any of these images to see them close up:
I guess we will find out! The three photos above were taken over a period of four days.
1. Less than 24 hours after planting.
2. Two days old (label and dome removed for the photo)
3. Four days old, they are now big enough to show with the label on and dome no longer necessary.
After writing this, I decided to see how these photos would look on Associated Content so here is a link to my similar article there:
One resource for finding places to buy the purslane seeds online is Organic Purslane Seeds, however they are also available on eBay from time to time as well as from Wild Garden Seed, Territorial Seed Co., Johnny', Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Seeds of Change, and others.
UPDATE 7-19-2008: About 3 weeks later, the purslane is doing just fine in the AG and would be ready to take out and put in one of my aerated pots of water, except that we are heading back to the desert for the winter, and I will need to start over again when we get there as it is neither practical or politic to take plants across state lines. This experiment was a success, though, as now we know that this plant which thrives in arid cracks of cement does even better with its roots dangling in water.
It is an especially good plant to grow indoors because it cannot get into the neighbor's yard (and some people still consider purslane "invasive" and do not appreciate volunteer plants) and also because it is closer to the kitchen and dining areas. Wahoo! We are used to tossing a handful of the green variety in when we make a pot of beans, but in my view the golden kind is tastier when eaten raw in a salad.
UPDATE September 4, 2008: When we moved back to our winter home, we had to prematurely harvest all the little green ones, and clean and store the AeroGarden planters, which was much less trouble than I had expected, by the way. It was in fact really easy!
Then as soon as we got relocated, it was a thrill planting new purslane and a bigger thrill to see it flourishing here in the desert:
It grows fast at the beginning and then "rests" a while until it is a bit over 3 weeks old, then takes off again:
To the right you can see larger leaves mushrooming up from the smaller pant.
UPDATE September 23, 2008:
In the photo below (left) Golden Purslane started from seeds on August 9 is exactly 25 days ago, just before its growth spurt.
Now the plant is big enough to clone and it is time for me to give it a page of its own: Pesky Purslane: Easy to Root from Cuttings.