Elena's Rojo Amaranth

Planted seeds alongside Indian Glass Corn from Bakers. Corn did great while amaranth germination rate was really low - maybe 1 in 10. Only 1 sprout survived to maturity, but it was incredibly tall, strong, and beautiful. Tried seeds from the same packet as microgreens and had no problem with germination rate then. Will try starting the seeds indoors and then transplanting outside in early Summer. Really not sure why the direct sowing didn't work. I'm still somewhat of a gardening newbie.

We grew these at the Georgia Southern Botanic Garden in our Children's veggie garden. They got to about five feet, which in a two foot high raised bed was impresseive. The clusters were full and stayed throughout the summer. However, the stalks were fragile and needed to be supported with bamboo stakes. Also, once the grain was ripe, we couldn't figure out a way to separate the flower bracks from the seeds. No amaranth bread for us. If we had known how to harvest the grain I would have no complaints.

Used this as a backdrop to our front garden. Even in our short summers, cool nights, it grew to about 5 feet and recovered after several hail storms. Big beautiful, red-maroon seed heads. Spectacular plant!

where i stay i have very little growing space so i have to make due with planters. i planted these in a 5 gallon wet cell planter. I had 100% germination they grew about 5-6 feet tall and had some large beautiful flowers. I wanted to try the greens, but the bugs would beat me to it every time, they loved this plant so much they left the plants surrounding it alone including tomatoes cucumber many herbs and more (i don't use pesticides). Though i didn't get to try the greens from this plant i did get to enjoy more of the other plants because it was there, despite all the effort of the bugs it still produced a lot of seeds, after i cut the flower heads and finished them inside it grew another round in a short time giving me a additional round of seeds for more sharing. it also seemed to bring in some predator bugs. i would regularly see spiders and praying mantis hanging out on it. Deffinitly a great addition to any garden, i would suggest this to everyone.

I thought this looked interesting so I planted it next to my Indian corn. It is huge and the most brilliant red! The grain heads are easily 18 to 20 inches tall and 12 inches wide. The stalks are over 6 feet tall. I ate some young leaves in salad. It tastes a little like spinach. I plan to harvest the seeds and want to plant it in more places next spring. I'm currently researching harvesting and milling as I'd like to be able to use it to cook with. A strikingly beautiful plant!