Welcome to my "now what?" series. This is part of my Food Storage Prepping in the Garden collection to help you better understand what you are growing and how to use your harvest.
Red Malabar Spinach (Basella rubra) and Green Malabar Spinach (Basella alba) are not a “true Spinach” like Bloomsdale Longstanding (Spinacea oleracea). There are a number of other plants that are grown to use as a spinach substitute and Malabar spinach is one of them.
If you want to grow heat loving greens in the summer, Malabar Spinach is an excellent choice!
Malabar Spinach is a fast-growing, vining plant that can grow up to 10 feet long. You’ll want to provide a trellis for this beautiful plant. The dark green, glossy leaves are thick and semi-succulent with a mucilaginous texture.
Malabar Spinach sometimes goes by other common names including Indian spinach, Ceylon spinach, vine spinach, and climbing spinach.
At Mary’s Heirloom Seeds, we carry seeds for Red Vine Malabar Spinach and Green Vine Malabar Spinach. I prefer the red vine for its vibrant addition to my gardens.
Basella is stimulated to produce flowers under dry conditions or short-day conditions. The flowers are followed by ornamental, four-parted deep-purple to black berries (drupes). The tasteless red-purple juice of the fresh berries can stain and is used as a dye or food colorant.
This vegetable can be eaten either raw in salad mixes or stir-fried with garlic. I prefer to harvest and eat/cook right away instead of storing for later use.
Malabar spinach can be sauteed with other vegetables, cooked and served with meats, or used as a thickening agent in curries, soups, and stews.
Malabar Spinach leaves can be dehydrated and ground into a powder to later use. Another storage option is to blanch the leaves and freeze for later.
