New Zealand Spinach (Warrigal Greens)
Tetragonia teragonioides (Warigal Greens or New Zealand Spinach), is another bush tucker plant which is popular in restaurants which serve bush tucker foods. You would pay a premium price for a dish containing this, so grow your own.
It is a ‘juicy’ plant the leaves of which need to be blanched before eating. It is used in dishes in which spinach or silver beet would be used. Just make sure of your identification before trying any of the native plants as foods.
It seems to be a hardy plant for areas without frost. It is salt tolerant. Propagate by seed or cuttings.
Also take care that plants are not growing in or near areas that have been sprayed with chemicals! Friends had looked forward to a feast of field mushrooms last week. Having cooked them they could not eat them as they could pick the taste of some chemical in them. Others possibly would not have been noticed the flavour except that these folk are ex farmers.
Would love to be able to buy some seeds in Australia. Earlier this year I took some Yates seeds of NZ Spinach to the Customs counter at the Sydney Airport on my way home to Australia but they said that because the botanical name was not on the packet, I could not bring them into Australia. They kept my packet of seeds and I would love to buy some over here – can you help me please?
Looking forward to your reply.
Judith Drysdale
Hi Judith,
I just read your comment about NZ Spinach seeds, I bought some on Ebay today, with postage they cost me $3.50 for 20 seeds, We have got some Celon Spinach growing in our garden, we tried it last week, it was quite good, I think that it might be similar to NZ Spinach, Good luck getting some seed, Regards Roy, on Russell Island QLD
New Zealand Spinach seed is available from Blackwood Seeds and Nindethana Seeds (online website and catalogue for both).
Many thanks for the suggestions on obtaining NZ spinach seeds. I will try them.
You can also buy NZ spinach from Eden Seeds (http://wwww.edenseeds.com.au). At time of writing they were $3 for 50 seeds. Look under S for Spinach – New Zealand.
Cheers,
John
Hi, does anyone have experience growing NZ spinach in areas where frost occurs? I would like to know if the plant comes back from ther roots or is the entire plant completely killed after frosts. Any helpful info is appreciated.
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