Malabar Spinach

Malabar spinach is a new one for us this year. We read about it in a Texas-based gardening magazine, that it was one plant that could tolerate and even thrive in the Texas summer heat.

Though it was touted as being a spinach substitute, it is definitely not spinach, or to a large degree, even spinach-like. It doesn't particularly taste like spinach, and it doesn't cook like spinach, but it is a green leafy plant...so I guess that makes it sorta spinachy?

It grows as a vine, and grows rather rapidly once established. I made a tepee-type trellis out of bamboo for it to climb. The structure is about 4' tall and it rather quickly grew past the top.

We use the younger, smaller and more tender leaves raw as a addition to salad greens - which is my preferred way to consume Malabar spinach. The older, larger and slightly tougher leaves are better sauteed or stir fried.

One issue with the leaves is that they are somewhat succulent-like, in other words they have a gooey substance, not unlike okra, contained within the leaves. Eaten raw it really isn't obvious - to me anyway. Cooked, however, the gooey nature seems to become more apparent.

Nutritionally Malabar seems to be worthy of growing. The USDA nutrition database shows that Malabar spinach and real spinach compare fairly closely in nutritional value.

I'll grow it again.

Garden Security Levels

I built my newest raised garden beds outside the relative security of my fenced-in backyard. I figured I might have an issue with some nosy and hungry white-tail dear. So, I purchase some 8' t-posts and 330' of "deer fence" with a roughly 2" by 2" grid pattern. Wow, with that size of grid, and that height of fence, all my problems should be solved...no deer, no bunnies, no critters at all.

Wrong.

After a couple of days, I noticed a cotton tail in the bed area. I must have fenced the poor thing in...I moved in through one of my quickly constructed low quality gates and shooed the little guy towards the gate, but instead he took off towards a hole in the fencing. A newly chewed hole. In my newly installed fencing. Closer inspection showed two holes on opposite sides of the fenced area as if the bunnies were announcing they were not going to be denied their rightful claim to a previously existing pathway that I had fenced them from.

Well, I wouldn't stand for it. So, off I go and purchase an appropriate length of 24" tall chicken wire to wrap the area and secure it from all invaders.

Now, deer gone - check. Bunnies gone - check.

The next days inspection tour brought more despair. One of my gates was partially open and our cantaloupe, just reaching a perfect ripeness had a neatly chewed hole in the top about 6" across, and looked as if it had been carefully scooped of its entire content. I see one eaten, then another. Raccoons, no doubt. So, I make plans for bolstering the strength of the gates to keep the crafty critters at bay.

Next day...same thing...cantaloupes devoured, but this time the gate had not been touched. The coons had come up and over the fence in search of their dinner. Back to the drawing board for the security of the area.

We decide upon a maximum security enclosure for the melon beds. 2x12's nailed into a box form and covered over the top with chicken wire, and for good measures, a couple of heavy rocks holding the whole thing down. Coon problem solved...it is just a pain now to inspect the melons for ripeness.