Just because it is over 100°F doesn’t mean you can’t have a tasty, home-grown green salad. Well, it won’t have lettuce in it, because lettuce is a cool-season crop, but there are a number of other heat loving greens to grow.

Live “Green”

What I love about these tasty greens is that they grow in the heat and they help me “eat in season” and rely far less on the supermarket and shipped-in food. You can live more “green” with these greens!

I grow these in big pots of potting soil on the catio, an enclosed patio, out of reach of hungry critters. Yes, ground squirrels, packrats and even quail will all eat these greens. So will cats. In his younger years Kinja, the kitty ninja, would have jumped right into the pot and chowed down.  As I write this he is 18 now, and sadly too old to jump anymore.

Greens for The Heat

You can cultivate a suite of greens long used by Native peoples, or try some of these new to us from other hot climates around the world. Many have “spinach” in their common name, but most are not even close to the same plant family as supermarket spinach.

Amaranth

Amaranth (Amaranth species). There are weedy amaranth and amaranth that are garden flowers. There are even species grown specifically for their ability to produce seeds. Snag the upper, tender, young leaves of any of them. Do give a nibble first because some of the wild ones are bitter. Amaranth can be used in green salads or cooked as a potherb, like spinach.  More on using amaranth on Savor the Southwest.

Climbing or Malabar Spinach

Malabar spinach (Basella alba var. rubra) is an Asian vegetable that requires a trellis. Sadly it is frost sensitive. In the Low and Middle Desert, plant on your pea trellises once peas are done for the winter. They may become perennial in a frost-free year.  You can still plant some now – in August.  It tastes much the same as store bought spinach and can be used in salads or cooked.

Cow Pea

Somewhat unusual, but cowpea leaves (Vigna unguiculata) are generally used as a cooked green in Asia. Don’t harvest too many or the plant won’t have energy to grow the tasty beans.  Note, every so often garbanzo beans or “chick peas” are mistakenly called cow peas (some sort of farm animal I guess).  Do not eat the leaves of that species.

The leaves are always cooked, in case you are wondering.  Cow peas grow well in the heat of summer.  Also called black-eyed cow pea.

WARNING – not all beans have edible leaves! Please be certain of your identification before eating.

Jewels of Opar

Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) is related to purslane, and the small young leaves and even the roots are edible. Leaves may be eaten raw or cooked, the roots are cooked.  In Mexico it is called Rama de Sapo (frog leaf) – perhaps because it is often found in moist areas.

This delicate plant is grown for it beautiful tiny flowers. It loves hot climates and is often found growing in the southern USA. Prolific flowers highly attractive to pollinators. It can be a pest in cultivated fields, but needs good garden soil so not an escapee in the Southwest.

New Zealand Spinach

New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides) is related to iceplants not spinach! You do want to eat it when it is young and eat it before it flowers. And do not eat your landscape iceplants! Many succulents like iceplants have protective compounds in them.

Tetragonia comes from seashores around the world, including in the Southern Hemishphere. The plants like well-drained or sandy soil. Carrots (a cool season crop) also like sandy soil – so this is a good vegetable to plant in the carrot bed in summer.

Purslane

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a “weed” that is really a tasty green! Slightly salty in taste, purslane (known locally as verdolagas) is eaten throughout much of Europe, Asia, and Mexico. Stems, leaves and flower buds are all edible either raw or cooked. Best is sauteed in bacon grease and wrapped with some refried beans in a corn tortilla. I have also experimented with fermenting purslane, but that did not work so well.

Purslane flowers are good for pollinators. There are wild species weedy species but also numerous garden cultivars. Seeds sold as “Golden Purslane” grow well in alkaline Southwest soils, no pots needed.  I got my seed from Southern Exposure seed company.

There are many more summer greens than these, but these are five that you can easily find seed of and easily grow in pots on the patio.  For more warm season vegetable gardening tips, see this post.  Did you notice – no lettuce, no kale, no cabbage. Those are greens for the cool season vegetable garden.

More about cooking and using these great greens is a topic for my sister site – Savor the Southwest.

As for specific directions on how to grow all these greens (and more!) – I have a book on the topic. I would love it if you buy it from me and help the local Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute. I’ll be honest though, it often costs less on those internet mega-sites.

Need Southwest Vegetable Garden Help?

May I recommend my book?  The Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Guide offers not just growing guides but some of the latest varieties – including ones specifically for raised bed and container growing. Price is what you would pay on Amazon – only when you buy from me you get a signed copy!

From the review:

“In this updated 2nd edition of Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, you’ll find much-needed advice and practical tips on growing an edible garden, no matter which part of the southwestern US you call home.

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Arizona-based Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.

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