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RE: Amaranth: The Immortal Grain // Plants for Every Homestead
I’ve been meaning to grow Amaranth for a while now. This year I’m committing to growing more staple crops to attempt to make a large dent in our food needs. What type of yields did you experience? I’ve heard up to a pound a plant, but that seems like it may be exaggerated.
We didn't measure the amount, and our method of winnowing was very inefficient. We need to learn to do that better. From about 2x the amount of plants you see in the pictures, we got about 2 quarts worth of amaranth. So it's definitely not on par with staple foods yet, but it was empowering and got me thinking of its potential as a staple crop if grown/harvested with more intention. All of these plants were volunteers from last year, so that says something about it's potential to be an awesome staple crop!
It's really cool to eat it in soups and sauces (as a thickener and nutty flavor) knowing that we grew this awesome source of protein. Do you grow any staple crops at this point? I would say potatoes and sweet potatoes are our qualifiers.
We eat amaranth semi-regularly. Less now than before. Oats, rice and quinoa are our main staples and we buy them in bulk. I'm hoping to replace rice with the amaranth and quinoa that we grow. But it'll take a few years of learning and expanding or growing space.
I've grow potatoes, dry beans, and field corn in the past. I haven't grown any grains as of yet, but I'll be doing much more beans, amaranth, and quinoa this year. It's one of my goals to track my yields, I'll be posting on all of that as the season progresses.