Mountain Spinach.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20476, 30 November 1934, Page 10

Mountain Spinach .

A Garden Corner.

'V'OT- OFTEN SEEN in gardens but all the same, quite a useful addition to the list of summer vegetables, this member of the spinach family, Atriplex hortensis, is a rapid and strong grower, attaining a height of 4 feet. The leaves are plucked from the stem and boiled, so that if it is prevented from flowering and seeding, its usefulness will cover quite a long period. In seedsmen’s catalogues it goes under the name of Orach, and in habit of growth somewhat resembles the weed called fat-hen. It has also the merit of growing freely in poor soils. It is a plant of which the bronze beetle, now active on the wing of an evening, is very fond, and this partiality could be utilised to their destruction, bv spraying the foliage with arsenate of lead. The bronze beetle is just now feeding voraciouslv on tender foliage and will attack orach in preference to most other plants. There is a purple leaved form which is sometimes grown as a border decorative 'plant, the leaves bronzing with a white mealy effect. T. D. LENNIE.