Our "Edibles" #25: Amaranth

October 10, 2008

This past week has brought us a couple mornings with frost and so it was time to tackle my Amaranth flowers, to gather their seeds.

In the past, without knowing what I had planted, I just let the flowers cascade to the ground and drop their seeds. We did get some survivor plants grow the following year and that was fun.

This year, I planted the Amaranth because the seeds (and leaves) are edible. We didn’t touch the leaves this year. I’m not much for salads and so I don’t make them very often.

To gather the seeds, there are a couple of methods:
1) put a paper bag over the seed head and let the seeds drop into the bag when it dries.
2) rub the seed heads between the hands and let the seeds drop into a container.

I didn’t have any paper bags handy and so I chose option #2.
I “attacked” two plants: one was red and one was green (or now brown). My hands are now red! Very pretty, indeed.

Next I had to separate the non-seeds from the seeds. This was much more difficult than with the barley. (Another plus for the barley).
At one point I realized that the little pieces of plant stem were not really pieces of stem but little bugs of some sort. And when disturbed they just sat there still as could be for a few moments. Then they’d start wiggling and crawling, trying to get out of the situation, I guess. Yah, that was fun. Out came my hands and I went and got some tools to aid the process—long-handled tools.

The technique that worked really well was to use a slotted ladle that I have and just bounce the pile of amaranth around in the ladle. The seeds fell through the slots into the bowl below and the big flower pieces stayed in the ladle and I could through them out.

Then I found that if I held the ladle right, the wind would blow the chaff away and the seeds dropped straight to the bowl. Well, about 90% of the seeds anyway. There were a lot of seeds surrounding my bowl when I was finished.

As I watched this sorting process, it became very artistic and so I went and grabbed a camera so that I could share the experience. As soon as I sat down, got the seeds and the ladle and the camera ready – the wind died down, as calm as could be and I wasn’t able to capture the flow of seeds/chaff.

And then, of course, I filled my storage card in the camera .. so, this is the best that I have.

Now, I’m drying the seeds and remaining unwanted flower parts. I am going to have to bring out the fan to finish the process. I will have to be pretty precise to leave only the seeds for saving.

End result: at this point I have over a cup of seeds from my two plants.
Time thus far: 1 hour.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)