A leafy green that's more nutritious than Kale
learn more about Amaranth greens
[music]
So there are two common types of Amaranth varieties that you can find
The first type is the purple amaranth
And the second variety of Amaranth
is the green Amaranth
you can easily buy Amaranth seeds in a lot of places
and in the video description I will also provide a link where you can buy your
seeds
Amaranth seeds are usually started in a seed starting mix
the reason being Amaranth transplants really well
and being a cool season crop you can
grow Amaranth indoors while your
bed is preparing or your containers are being prepared
Amaranth seeds take about
10 to 15 days for germination I usually leave my
seeds to germinate in the green house it creates a nice
humid environment and and increases the germination rate quite a lot
So you can see the Amaranth seedlings towards the left
I'm also growing some spinach in the same
seed starting container and as you can see if they have
germinated pretty well and while the seed are germinating they do not
need any kind of nutrition or fertilizer
till they develop their first set of leaves
an Amaranth has very shallow
root systems
so you can even sow the seeds directly in a small container
so as you can see here we are using two kinds of containers
one is
about a 6 inch high plastic container
where you can sow the seeds directly
and you will soon see towards end of this video
that the Amaranth has shallow root systems
so it's easy to grow them even in containers like
this baking tray that you see here
and you can already see that
the Amaranth seedlings have now sprouted
within about 10 to 15 days
and it's now time for us to transplant these
amaranth seedlings into bigger containers
when the seedlings are about
3or 4 inches tall
you can easily transplant these
seedlings into a container make sure you separate out
all the seedlings so that they have adequate space to grow
you do not want your seedlings to be crowded around each other
Now what's the big deal about growing leafy greens like Amaranth
well they are a great source of Vitamin A
Vitamin C they contain a lot of minerals
and nutritionally they are actually better than
kale which itself is a powerhouse
when it comes to nutrition so growing and eating
a lot of greens like Amaranth, Kale, spinach
swiss chard will not only give you a very healthy mind
it will also give you a very healthy body and will also let your body fight a
lot of diseases
now for these Amaranth seedlings I did not use a lot of fertilizer while
they were growing
but the potting mix that I have did have some added fertilizer in it
and that was sufficient for it to provide nutrition
to all these Amaranth greens that were growing
so Amaranth is not a very heavy feeder
but if you do not have fertilizer added to your potting mix
then I would recommend that you feed your Amaranth plants with a nice liquid
fertilizer
every 3 weeks or so while they grow
and they grow pretty fast you can expect to harvest
Amaranth about
thirty to forty days after you have transplanted the seedlings
and as you can see the seedlings are growing pretty well here
and this container is not very deep
you can even use shallower containers for growing Amaranth
so the Nitrogen requirements for Amaranth
are pretty high which is why you would use a fertilizer like fish fertilizer
or seaweed or an all-purpose fertilizer to feed your Amaranth plants
So as you can see the stem have now
become thicker and the leaves are growing very well and
it's still not time to harvest the Amaranth Greens...we'll let them grow for
just a few days before we harvest them
so at this stage you can see that the plant has become a little bushy
it started growing out multiple leaves from
around the stem and at this stage you can go ahead and harvest your Amaranth greens
and as you can see here the roots are very shallow
which is what I mentioned in the beginning of this video
that you can actually use containers that are not very deep
for growing Amaranth so baking trays are perfect you can even grow them in
shallow six-inch containers
So do you go Amaranth greens?
Or now that you know what
Amaranth greens are would you like to try growing them in your garden?
do let me know what you think and I'll see you again soon
Happy Gardening!
[music]