Malabar Spinach
I grew Malabar spinach (Basella rubra) from a seedling for the first time last year. My veggie plot is tiny so edible climbers are welcome – there’s plenty of air space, plus cranky recycled climbing frames.
This is a climbing vine. It’s not spinach but is in the Basellaceae family. It’s grown throughout tropical regions of Asia. Other names for Malabar spinach include: Ceylon spinach, Vietnamese spinach and Indian spinach.
People seem to love or hate it – there’s no middle ground. It’s a great, reliable source of summer greens. The flavour is similar to spinach. Also apparently it’s sometimes grown as an ornamental – the red stems, white flowers, and dark purple berries are attractive. The leaves are beautiful - large, heart shaped, veined, glossy and fleshy. It’s fast growing too - my climbing vine photo was taken 37 days after the shown seedling was planted.
The juicy, purple berries can be used to colour drinks, jellies, sweets, and for face painting. My fellow gardener Rukman, who hails from Sri Lanka, recognised my plant and showed me how, as a child, he used to squeeze the purple fleshy seeds and paint his fingernails and his school art book with the dye. “Both my mother & teacher were not happy, but I am still happy”.
I left the cut back remains of my old plant to hopefully come away again this year but it's disappeared so I have seedlings underway. I’m aiming for additional plants this year by growing from (Kings) seed. I’ve started them off in pots in the toolshed where I can control the moisture.
Malabar spinach is frost tender, so dont plant it out too early. It likes rich manured soil and warmth. It won’t grow quickly until the weather really warms up. In fact, it is extremely heat tolerant. In the tropics it is a perennial and in warmer temperate regions is an annual.
Harvesting is time-consuming - cutting off one leaf at a time. It can be cut in long trails too (stems, young shoots and leaves are all eaten) but I like to leave the trails to climb.
The leaves are mucilaginous (slimy) which sounds revolting but makes no difference to me. In fact, the succulent mucilage is a particularly rich source of soluble fibre. It is also useful as a thickener in soups and stews. It keeps its green colour - I’ve used large leaves in a frittata, as a thick green layer in a baked potato cake, in soup, in a stir fry and Rukman’s suggestions are “Chopped leaves are really tasty in red dhal curry. Add leaves toward the end. Or steamed/boiled leaves and tender stems are also tasty with pinch of salt and grated fresh coconut.”
Young fresh leaves can be added to salads too.
