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Vine spinach (Climbing spinach, Indian spinach, Malabar spinach) white
Malabar-spinach (Ceylon-spinach, Indian-spinach, vine-spinach) - Basella alba.
Annual vines can grow up to 2 meters. Fleshy leaves of pleasant taste are used for food. They are used for salad, soups and canning for winter. Fruits are small purple nuts. They are added to fruit drinks, jelly drinks and jams. Can be grown in pots, balconies, but plants must have supported. Seed germination is long; recommend soaking before sowing for 12 hours in room temperature water.
* Malabar or Indian spinach is an ideal plant that will be indoors in the cold season, and in the warm season will decorate your pergola in the garden, like a beautiful liana.
In nature, there are two types of it: Basella alba and Basella rubra.
Basella is native to tropical and subtropical regions of America and Africa, Madagascar, India, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
Basella seeds have excellent germination, and the seedlings are unpretentious and grow vigorously.
Care is very simple, you can even say that she almost does not require care. A sunny window is the best place.
Regular watering (the more you water it, the more green mass it gives), top dressing and foliar spraying, which she loves very much.
Diseases and pests are practically absent. But this creeper has one drawback: the fragility of the shoots, so it is advisable to grow it in a large pot with high support in the centre: if the plant is guided around the support, it will be protected from breaking off the shoots.
Basella loves to shoot in all directions, and wraps herself around other plants, window handles: here the risk of injury when rearranging dishes is great. Broken shoots can be rooted again.
For the summer, the liana is carefully planted in the garden near the pergola. For a safety net, “children” are always left at home for the summer: if a sudden frost at the end of summer destroys the main plants, then the children will keep the continuation of the genus of this wonderful plant in your collection.
Basella is a very pretty plant: numerous shoots with juicy green leaves picturesquely braid almost the entire window. An adult plant begins to bloom (three to four times a year).
The flowers look like white-pink capsules, collected in a brush, and the ripe fruits of the basella are very decorative and are shiny berries of thick black colour. On the plant, you can simultaneously see flowers in racemes, and berries of varying degrees of maturity and size - from small green to ripe black. Garlands with flowers gradually turn into garlands of fruits.
The use of Malabar spinach in cooking.
Basella is not only a beautiful vine but also an edible plant (very similar to the famous garden spinach).
Basella leaves are juicy, with a pleasant taste and delicate aroma, which contain (per 100 g of dry matter): up to 20% protein, 3.5% fat, 54% carbohydrates, 9% dietary fibre, 19% ash elements. In addition, they are very rich in calcium (3000 mg), vitamins (50 mg), especially C (1200 mg), B1 (0.7 mg), B2 (1.8 mg), A, iron and other beneficial substances. In winter, leaves are added to salads and decorated main dishes with them.
In the cuisines of the peoples of Southeast Asia and Africa, basella occupies a prominent place: they are put fresh in sandwiches and added to salads, and brewed as an alternative to tea. Soups and mashed potatoes are prepared from them, they are added to various vegetable dishes with garlic, curry and pepper.
Ripe berries are used as a food colouring for pastries and sweets, for making kissels, jams, sweets (and adding a small amount of lemon juice improves the taste effect).
The leaves are cut off as new ones grow: the lower ones are cut off, and the upper ones begin to grow with renewed vigour.
The plant has a large vegetative mass, can grow up to 10 meters in length. It is better to form Malabar spinach in one stem and with shortened side shoots (no longer than 1 meter).
Try growing basella as a houseplant - you won't regret it!
Annual vines can grow up to 2 meters. Fleshy leaves of pleasant taste are used for food. They are used for salad, soups and canning for winter. Fruits are small purple nuts. They are added to fruit drinks, jelly drinks and jams. Can be grown in pots, balconies, but plants must have supported. Seed germination is long; recommend soaking before sowing for 12 hours in room temperature water.
* Malabar or Indian spinach is an ideal plant that will be indoors in the cold season, and in the warm season will decorate your pergola in the garden, like a beautiful liana.
In nature, there are two types of it: Basella alba and Basella rubra.
Basella is native to tropical and subtropical regions of America and Africa, Madagascar, India, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
Basella seeds have excellent germination, and the seedlings are unpretentious and grow vigorously.
Care is very simple, you can even say that she almost does not require care. A sunny window is the best place.
Regular watering (the more you water it, the more green mass it gives), top dressing and foliar spraying, which she loves very much.
Diseases and pests are practically absent. But this creeper has one drawback: the fragility of the shoots, so it is advisable to grow it in a large pot with high support in the centre: if the plant is guided around the support, it will be protected from breaking off the shoots.
Basella loves to shoot in all directions, and wraps herself around other plants, window handles: here the risk of injury when rearranging dishes is great. Broken shoots can be rooted again.
For the summer, the liana is carefully planted in the garden near the pergola. For a safety net, “children” are always left at home for the summer: if a sudden frost at the end of summer destroys the main plants, then the children will keep the continuation of the genus of this wonderful plant in your collection.
Basella is a very pretty plant: numerous shoots with juicy green leaves picturesquely braid almost the entire window. An adult plant begins to bloom (three to four times a year).
The flowers look like white-pink capsules, collected in a brush, and the ripe fruits of the basella are very decorative and are shiny berries of thick black colour. On the plant, you can simultaneously see flowers in racemes, and berries of varying degrees of maturity and size - from small green to ripe black. Garlands with flowers gradually turn into garlands of fruits.
The use of Malabar spinach in cooking.
Basella is not only a beautiful vine but also an edible plant (very similar to the famous garden spinach).
Basella leaves are juicy, with a pleasant taste and delicate aroma, which contain (per 100 g of dry matter): up to 20% protein, 3.5% fat, 54% carbohydrates, 9% dietary fibre, 19% ash elements. In addition, they are very rich in calcium (3000 mg), vitamins (50 mg), especially C (1200 mg), B1 (0.7 mg), B2 (1.8 mg), A, iron and other beneficial substances. In winter, leaves are added to salads and decorated main dishes with them.
In the cuisines of the peoples of Southeast Asia and Africa, basella occupies a prominent place: they are put fresh in sandwiches and added to salads, and brewed as an alternative to tea. Soups and mashed potatoes are prepared from them, they are added to various vegetable dishes with garlic, curry and pepper.
Ripe berries are used as a food colouring for pastries and sweets, for making kissels, jams, sweets (and adding a small amount of lemon juice improves the taste effect).
The leaves are cut off as new ones grow: the lower ones are cut off, and the upper ones begin to grow with renewed vigour.
The plant has a large vegetative mass, can grow up to 10 meters in length. It is better to form Malabar spinach in one stem and with shortened side shoots (no longer than 1 meter).
Try growing basella as a houseplant - you won't regret it!
Eng.: Indian spinach, Malabar spinach, Phooi leaf, Vine spinach, Creeping spinach, Climbing spinach. Bot. syn.: Basella cordifolia Lam.
