    This is the purple-leaved form of a salad green first documented in the New World by John Lawson, Surveyor General of North Carolina, in his History of Carolina, 1714. The red or purple form was listed by Bernard McMahon in his American Gardener's Calendar, 1806. Thomas Jefferson cultivated the green form yearly for its tasty leaves. Red Orach is a hardy, annual vegetable suitable for full sun. It grows to three to five feet and is most ornamental in the kitchen garden. Sow the seed early in the spring, as early as the soil can be worked, and harvest the young leaves like spinach. Line Drawing from The Vegetable Garden by M. M. Vilmorin-Andrieux (1885) zone1, zone2, zone3, zone4, zone5, zone6, zone7, zone8, zone9, zone0 Not available for 2009.
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