GardenTender Perennial Leafy Green · zones 9–11 · 2 varieties
Malabar spinach
Basella alba
Basellaceae — the only crop in its plant family here.
Malabar spinach (Basella alba) is a tender perennial leafy green for USDA zones 9–11. It wants full sun and pH 5.5–7 soil, with about 1–2 in of water weekly. It matures in about 70 days from sowing. Watch for snails and cercospora leaf spot. Below: its full sourced profile from 5 extension sources, plus a planting calendar timed to your frost dates.
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP for yours. This calendar assumes the crop is started indoors. Timing is a guide from the crop's sourced growth stages; confirm with your local frost dates and extension before you sow.
What we will not put a number on
We do not give a feeding rate for this crop, and that is deliberate rather than a gap. The figures published by extension services are pounds of nitrogen per acre for a production field — they do not convert safely to a raised bed or a pot without knowing your soil test and your fertilizer's analysis, and guessing errs toward burning roots. It is also why every chart you find online disagrees with the next one.
We give watering as a depth per week rather than gallons per plant, because that is how it is actually measured and how the published figures are written. A gallons-per-plant number depends on your spacing, your soil and whether the plant is in a pot — so it would look more precise than it is.
Site & soil
- Hardiness zones
- 9–11
- Sun
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Soil texture
- Sandy loam, Well drained
- Frost tolerance
- Tender
No published figure for the temperature frost starts to hurt it, the temperature that would kill it and a heat limit. We looked — where a number is missing here it is missing from the research, not skipped. The crop’s frost and heat tolerance above still applies.
The plant
- Mature height
- 3–10 ft
- Mature spread
- 2–3 ft
- Growth rate
- Fastest
- Spacing in row
- 6–12 in
- Between rows
- 12–18 in
- Planting depth
- 0.25 in
- Container size
- 3–5 gal — low end is the minimum, high end is betterest
- Support
- Needs staking or a trellis
- Grown from
- Direct sow, Transplant, Cutting
Water & feeding
- Water needs
- Moderate
- Water per week
- 1–2 in/wkest
- Critical water
- Germination, Vegetativeest
- Feeding
- Moderate
Timing & fruiting
- Days to maturity
- 70 days from seed
- The source gives this for optimal conditions. Malabar spinach is heat-driven, so a cool summer will run longer than 70 days.
- Harvest cues
- Rapid leaf growth
Planted again for autumn
- Sow by
- mid Aug typical · zone 6b
70 days to maturity from sowing, counted back from the first frost above. Not published for anywhere in particular: it is your own frost date and this crop's own figure, which is why it works wherever you are. A days-to-maturity figure is a catalog number for a good season rather than a promise, and a cold month moves it.
Edible parts per source: leaf, stem.
Compiled from the extensions cited below. Which ones actually show up depends on your region — your extension's local list is the last word.
| Variety | Habit | Days | Color | What it is known for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green | Vining | 50–60 | Green | True Leaf Market describes this astakes the heat |
| Red | Vining | 50–85 | Green, Red | Johnny's Selected Seeds describes this astakes the heat |
- NC State Extension
- UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions
- University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension
- University of Florida IFAS Extension
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension
We compile bare facts from these university-extension and horticultural sources, never copied prose. 16 of the 20 values on this page carry a citation. The rest are marked est; hover one and it says why — either nobody publishes a figure we could point at, or a person set it and attached no source. Figures vary with climate and seed source; confirm with your local extension before you buy.
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