New Zealand Spinach – 100 Seeds

New Zealand Spinach Seeds. Tetragonia tetragonioides is a leafy groundcover also known as New Zealand spinach, Warrigal greens, kōkihi (Māori language), sea spinach, Botany Bay spinach, tetragon and Cook’s cabbage. It is native to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Chile and Argentina.

It is rare to find seeds for this plant in South Africa.  The species prefers a moist environment for growth. The plant has a trailing habit, and will form a thick carpet on the ground or climb though other vegetation and hang downwards. The leaves of the plant are 3–15 cm long, triangular in shape, and bright green. The leaves are thick, and covered with tiny papillae that look like water drops on the top and bottom of the leaves. The flowers of the plant are yellow, and the fruit is a small, hard pod covered with small horns. The plant is a halophyte and grows well in saline ground.

New Zealand Spinach Culinary Uses

• It is grown for the edible leaves, and can be used as food or as an ornamental and delicious ground cover.
• As some of its names signify, it has similar flavour and texture properties to spinach, and is cooked like spinach.
• Like spinach, it contains small amounts of oxalates; its medium to low levels of oxalates need to be removed by blanching the leaves in hot water for one minute, then rinsing in cold water before cooking.
• It thrives in hot weather, and is considered an heirloom vegetable.
• Few insects will bother it, and even slugs and snails.
• This is a perfect spinach type of plant, to grow in south africa’s hot weather.
• The plant can be quite invasive, so if you do not want to grow it as a ground cover, then growing it inside a pot or planter to contain it, will be the way to go.

Growing New Zealand Spinach

• Before planting New Zealand Spinach Seeds, the seeds should be soaked for 12 hours in cold water, or 3 hours in warm water.
• Scarifying the top of the seeds, helps with the germination rate.
• Sow the seeds in spring, up to end of January (in South Africa).
• Seeds should be planted 5 to 10 mm deep, and spaced 15 to 30 cm apart.
• The seedlings will emerge in 10 to 20 days.