Three years ago I planted a row of Orange Giant Amaranth. At the time I had grand illusions of harvesting the grain and supplying my family with a bumper crop of the super food. Reality set in when I went to harvest it. I have never done any "threshing" before and choosing amaranth with its teeny, tiny seeds wasn't exactly the right choice for cutting my teeth into the finer points of grain threshing. To be frank, it kicked my butt. So much so that I quickly decided that if I ever wanted amaranth again I would be more than happy to make a trip to the grocery store. The amaranth seemed to have other plans because the next year it came back up on its own. I was excited to see it because I really like the looks of the plant so I let it grow. This year it came back again and it is growing among my blueberry bushes. The pictures really don't do the plant justice. Some are seven foot tall and the tops are a beautiful, fire orange. In one pic you'll see that one of them has fallen over. That's because it rained and the top holds so much water that it gets top heavy. I really love this plant and I'm glad it has such a desire to keep on coming up. Who knows? Maybe I'll try to harvest it again one day... but I doubt it.
Mate.....what an monster! I have never seen that one...but I do know that the other types do seed-out a little too good. I have grown the red ones with the long, red hanging flower tassels. Beautiful, but as I said--they seeded-out too profusely for me. Anyway--this was an interesting posting with great pics. I liked it.
That is a plant that demands attention with the height and the bright orange color. I would let it re-seed also. I grew one with colored leaves years ago but in our short season it never developed seeds, darn it.
Now that's what I call a striking plant. The colour is so intense and with its height it could make a wonderful feature in the middle of a flower bed.
WOW! Never seen one that big before!! I have a tiny red one and a tiny yellow one in a pot on my picnic table. I had no idea they got that big!!!
I appreciate all the comments. It's exciting to know that I've been able to grow something not everyone has seen. For anyone interested, I purchased the seeds from Baker Creek. If you've never heard of them just do a search. It's been a week since I posted the pics and the amaranth is still showing off its fiery disposition. I kept a sunflower journal where I posted weekly pics of their progress (if you haven't seen it check it out under BLOGS). Maybe next year I'll do that with the amaranth.
S-H, below is a link to my blog where I've kept a journal and taken pictures of the sunflowers over the last 15 weeks. http://www.gardenstew.com/blog/index19470.html
I'll get plenty of seeds 2ofus. I'm thinking I'll just cut off the broken parts of the plantand see what happens. I've had them break off before and they've started shoots just below the break.
