Amaranth - Callaloo - Bangladeshi Dhata

Amaranthus spp.

Story: This is a most spectacular callaloo, with deep red and green colouration. A real feature in ornamental flower beds. It can be used as cooking greens, and goes well in Indian or Bangladeshi cooking with tomatoes, onions and spices. Young leaves are tender and can be cooked like spinach but as it gets older, it requires stewing.

When to sow: Either direct sow in April, or start indoors 6 weeks before the last frost. 

Requirements: Once the seeds have germinated, callaloo is easy to care for, and handles drought well. 

Harvesting for eating: Spring - Early Autumn. For eating, it is best picked young when the leaves are still tender, older leaves should be cooked for a long time and hold up well in stews. 

Harvesting for Seed Saving: Late summer - Autumn when seed heads begin to dry on plant.

How to save seed: Callaloo will cross with other callaloo varieties so just grow one if you plan to save seeds as it can flower quickly in hot weather. Allow the healthiest plants to grow and grow - it can grow up to 1.5m. It will begin to set flower spikes in mid-late summer, allow these to mature and begin to dry on the plant, then cut the entire flower spike off and allow it to dry completely, by hanging with a paper or muslin bag tied around it to collect the tiny black seeds. Once fully dry, shake and crush the seed heads to release the seeds. There will be lots of chaff so try to winnow as much off as possible. One plant will give hundreds of thousands of tiny seeds so send back as much as you can to us and share the rest with friends and other growers. 

Number of plants to save seeds from: 5-10 minimum, 10 - 20 or more is ideal

Pollination: Wind pollinated (and occasionally insect) 

How to send back seed: Please label all seed with variety, type, date and your name and contact. If you didn't get a chance to fill out our online data collection form, you can also send us a few lines about how it grew for you/flavour etc. Please aim to send back 1 tablespoon of dried seed or more so that we can continue to share with network members. Send to: The Seed Saving Network, Omved Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, N6 5JF.

Please remember, if you’re an individual grower you can order up to 4 packets of seeds. If you order more than this, you will receive just four packs to begin with. This is to ensure we get plenty of data in return and to keep our stocks sustainable for years to come.* 

*Community groups, seed guardians and Experienced Growers can order larger quantities, please email us at info@seedsaving.network if this is the case.

If an item is out of stock we will send a close alternative.