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Last edited by shiny on November 13, 2026. View history

Magenta Spreen Lamb's Quarters

Chenopodium giganteum

A variety of lamb's quarters

A stunning version of wild lamb's quarters with brilliant fluorescent magenta colouring on all new growth. Can grow into bushes 1.5 m tall. Cooked like spinach, and picking the tips continually gives a long picking season. Self seeds easily. Sow in trays in spring, prick out at 2.5 cm and transplant at 5 to 10 cm high at 30 cm diagonal spacing, or scatter sow over prepared soil as a carbon crop.

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Magenta spreen lamb's quarters facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less

Row Spacing

30cm median of members' seed packets
Optimal temperature 12–18 °C
Absolute temperature 3–31 °C
FAO EcoCrop
Optimal rainfall 800–1200 mm/year
Absolute rainfall 300–3200 mm/year
FAO EcoCrop
Optimal soil pH 6–7
Absolute soil pH 4.2–8.2
FAO EcoCrop

Crop cycle

120–270 days
FAO EcoCrop

Optimal light

clear skies to very bright
FAO EcoCrop
What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For magenta spreen lamb's quarters, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 3°C and a shortest growing cycle of 120 days at its best temperature, about 1440 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your magenta spreen lamb's quarters will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.

Photos

Magenta spreen lamb's quarters plantings

lamb's quarters
lamb's quarters
by cropbot

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Find magenta spreen lamb's quarters seeds

Time to harvest

If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 120 to 270 days.

From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.

Ecological requirements

Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Chenopodium album L.

Family / Taxonomy Magnoliopsida
Caryophyllidae
Caryophyllales
Chenopodiaceae
Life form herb
Life span annual
Habit erect
Optimal soil depth shallow (20-50 cm)
Optimal soil texture heavy, medium, light
Optimal soil fertility high
Optimal soil drainage well (dry spells)
Optimal soil salinity low (<4 dS/m)
Photoperiod long day (>14 hours)

Learn more about magenta spreen lamb's quarters

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