Vegetable · Amaranthaceae
When to plant leaf amaranth
A hot-weather spinach that gets better as the temperature climbs. Where chard sulks and spinach bolts, this is the leaf that keeps producing.
Sow direct
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
30-45
From sowing to a first picking.
Frost tolerance
Tender
How much cold the plant itself will take.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make leaf amaranth plantable anywhere.
- Sow direct 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 30–45 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
- Sow again every 14 days for a continuous supply.
Getting the timing right
Sow onto warm soil from two weeks after the last frost and every two weeks after that. Cut the main stem at about 30cm and it branches into a bushier, more productive plant.
Frost tolerance
Killed at 0C with no margin at all. Sow late, harvest until the first autumn frost, and expect the plants to collapse overnight when it comes.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).