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Vegetables → New Zealand Spinach to Nuts → New Zealand Spinach → Tetragonia expansa (T. tetragonioides)

Tetragonia expansa (T. tetragonioides)

New Zealand Spinach

BRANDS AND SEED PACKET INFORMATION

Gusto Italia
Trilingual Seed Packet (600mg)
Price: £1.19 GBP
Out of Stock

Botanical Interests
5g
Price: £1.40 GBP
Out of Stock

Kings Seeds
seed for 50 plants
Price: £0.99 GBP
Quantity:   

Suffolk Herbs
Foil pk
Price: £1.80 GBP
Quantity:   

Lilly Miller Seeds
4g
Price: £1.17 GBP
Out of Stock

Ontario Seed Company
seed pk
Price: £0.89 GBP
Out of Stock

Description

Familiar to many gardeners on the Coast, this is not really a spinach, but it is so vigorous and troublefree once it is established that during the summer leaves are always just a pick away for salads or cooking like spinach.

The small hard seeds will benefit from soaking over night before planting directly into the garden. Germination is often spotty, so treasure the ones that get going and leave them lots of room -- they can get several feet across. Let them set seed and, if you watch carefully, tiny seedlings will be waiting for you to transplant. Although it will grow all summer, the flavour is better if the plants have some shade from the hot sun. Pick leaves and young shoots of this trailing plant regularly to keep it producing.

This substitute for spinach is readily available, yet not widely grown. It has the advantage over true spinach in that it is perennial and grows well in dry soils and hot weather (although it is generally still grown as an annual). Tetragonia is a native of New Zealand, Tasmania and Southern Australia, many Pacific Islands, China, Japan and southern South America. It grows wild on sandy and stony beaches along the coast. It is also found along the California coast up to Oregon where it is not native, and it is considered naturalised in the Azores and Portugal. With this wide distribution, it is surprising that it made it to Europe from New Zealand around 1770. It was found to be a valuable source of Vitamin C and was used to combat scurvy on the long sea passage home. Seeds were grown at Kew in 1772, but it didn't become more widely used as a vegetable in Europe until 1819.