In chapter 1, I came across an interesting piece of information: spinach is a fruit-bearing plant. Once the plant flowers, it develops a "miniscule, often prickly, fruit capsule." Well, it just so happens that I have an abundance of flowering spinach in my garden, so I decided to go and investigate.
Lo and behold, I find my spinach bearing tiny berry-like fruits a few millimeters long.
If you're thinking this might be the next culinary find, think again: these are barely edible. Even at their size, they are really fibrous and difficult to chew. They taste vaguely of spinach, and vaguely of not much else.
I picked a stalk of spinach and brought it inside because I wanted to see the seeds. With the point of my knife, I plucked off a couple of the seed capsules and split them open. The seed is barely visible, but it's there:
Well, who'd've thunk it? The garden isn't a total loss - I am learning some new things. Did you know that arugula produces some very interesting flowers? Check these out:
Interesting, eh?
9 comments:
Is that a new header ?? Looks really nice. Didnt know that about the spinach, interesting. I spy rosemary in your garden also:)
Your pictures are really nice.
I've learnt something new today! Thanks for sharing...
Cheers,
Rosa
Your new header is GREAT!
Huh, I never knew that arugula flowers - very cool!!!!
Huh, who knew?
The book sounds really interesting.
Weird, I didn't know any of that.
I didn't know these things, either! How strange about the spinach! The book sounds interesting.
Yaoooo, I never noticed that in my plant. I know that Arugula give flower if you don't keep harvest it, but fruiting spinach, that's new to me. I better check next time.
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