Blitum capitatum (formerly Chenopodium capitatum)
Origin: North America
Improvement status: Cultivar
Seeds per packet: ~500
Germination tested 11/2023: 75%
Life cycle: Annual
We're pleased to be offering this truly fun plant — kids will love it! — from our friends at Wild Garden Seeds. From their catalogue: "Also called 'strawberry blite' or 'beetberry' for the red fruits that form at maturity. These are pleasantly sweet, but insipid alongside a real berry [unless you dust them in sugar!]. Leaves are the real crop here, spinach-green, triangular, and bite-sized with toothed margins, borne in an open rosette. A heat lover for summer salad; a beautiful curiosity in fruit. Wild Chenopodiums all have erratic seed germination, due largely to variable thickness of the seed coat. This strain has undergone several generations of selection for faster sprouting and faster growing seedlings. OSSI (Open Source Seed Initiative) Pledged Variety."