Quinoa and Amaranth

[synclinorium]

I was curious, has anyone here tried growing some of the more unusual pseudocereals and cereal crops in your own backyard (or for that matter, grains in general)? From what I hear they're pretty easy to grow (a lot of them being considered weeds in various areas). There's no way I'll get a chance to try it out this year, as I have a tiny little rental plot to work with, but I'm thinking about doing this when I own property (and neighbors won't complain about any "weed" seeds blowing into their yard. I'd rather not encourage them to spray their roundup crap). Plus it would make my dirty-hippy-heart proud to be producing these food items locally instead of having them shipped in from somewhere.

The plants themselves look gorgeous when they're mature:

 

[biscgolf]

i grow amaranth as a microgreen- it is easy to grow as long as it is warm. also self seeds like crazy where the trays get dumped on the compost pile- at that point it becomes a weed. it is very similar to pigweed, fortunately moreso to the red root pigweed than the spiny. i have never intentionally grown it all the way to "grain" stage.

 

[highalt]

Very pretty! I tried growing quinoa at the community garden a couple of years ago, but right before the seedheads were ready to harvest, we had our first frost. May give it another try some time.

 

[Burning Colon]

like the golf man, i grow amaranth like a micro green but i don't use it. it is mixed in with a package of "greens" that i grow. actually my old chinese neighbour sows in one of my garden beds. even he doesn't use it. amaranth tastes like grass and i get so few plants out of the deal that collecting the seeds would be a time waster. it grows in with other greens like mustard that i do use in salads.

the wife buys quinoa in bulk buckets, i tried it once and it gave me really bad gas! i am talking the gas that clears event halls. for 2 days i walked around farting uncontrolably. a spastic colon without the juice!

but as for the "greens", that i like and harvest the seeds every year, somehow the amaranth finds its way into the mix.

 

[Sawyer]

I don't intentionally grow these, though from sheer stupidity and competing demands for time I did let a crop of pigweed go to seed one year. Been fighting it ever since.

Since you mention grains in general, I'm in my third winter now of growing and evaluating several strains of winter wheat and barley and last year I added winter rye and oats. Plan for barley is to develop a strain (or strains) optimized for brewing and/or distilling and for the wheat, optimize for pizza dough. Rye for distilling and oats just because. Also experimenting with winter canola and flax for oilseed, but it's been too mild a winter (so far) to conclude anything about hardiness. Also hairy vetch for nitrogen enrichment. Allegedly a good winter vetch crop can eliminate the need for supplemental nitrogen the following year for just about everything except corn. I like having the soil be productive and green throughout the winter. It does delay spring planting while waiting for the crops to mature, but I don't plant the winter stuff everywhere.