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Herba Stella Plantago Coronopus Minutina Plantain Seeds
Packet of 100+ organically grown seeds!
This is another Plantago or Plantain species, and as you many know they are a real favourite of mine.
This one is a highly selected domesticated form and far less wild than some of my others.(link to the rest at the bottom of this text)
It is just as hardy, but it gets really lush and is very very productive.
The plants have a central heart of sorts, with the leaves radiating out from the middle.
You can harvest the outer 20% or a really big handful from each plant, every week, pretty much indefinitely.
If you have a few plants then that is more than enough to keep you going.
After a while the plants rise up a little and the stem lifts off the ground.
When that happens just pull them up, dig the hole a little deeper and replant them.
This kicks their growth off again and they send out a heap of new suckers and side shoots.
If you don’t do this they will flower and set seed which isn’t a big deal, just means they put a bit of energy into that and leaf production slows for a while.
The leaves themselves are ok raw, kinda grassy, very mildly bitter, but nowhere as bitter as a lettuce heart or chicory.
They are loaded with fibre and they have long strings similar to the ones in celery.
Unlike celery the strings are thicker and not as tough, and they break up easily when you chew it, without getting stuck between your teeth.
Cooked it is like any other leafy green vegetable and we use it in pasta, stirfry, and as a substitution for spinach in ricotta pies.
Spinach is a lot harder to grow here as the bugs smash it and it needs a lot more watering, where as we have these guys in the bodgy aquaponics setup, in polystyrene boxes of potting mix floating on the dam, and just in pots of sandy soil and they thrive on the minimal TLC.
Known by a heaps of names all over the world, these are a few.
Arnoglossum subulatum, Asterogeum laciniatum, buck’s-horn plantain, buck’s horn plantain, buckhorn plantain, buckshorn plantain, Coronopus vulgaris, cut-leaf plantain, cut-leaved plantain, cutleaf plantain, cut leaf plantain, erba stella, herba stella, minutina, Plantago columnae, Plantago coronopifolia, Plantago coronopoda, Plantago coronopus subsp. commutata, Plantago coronopus subsp. coronopus, Plantago coronopus subsp. coronopus, Plantago filiformis, Plantago jacquinii, Plantago neglecta, Plantago stellaris, and the very appropriate star of the earth.
It is native to most of Europe, northern Africa, Pakistan and western Asia, and various forms of it are grown all over the world.
Some forms are quite aggressive and a couple have escaped into the wild here in OZ.
For this reason I can’t send these seeds to WA, TAS or VIC.
Never had this one get away from me and I have been growing it for years but please do keep that in mind.
It is quite different to the weedy wild forms and doesn’t set anywhere as many seeds despite it’s much bigger over all growth.
Because of this low seed set, and the fact we only ever grow a few plants at a time, I will only have a few packs of seeds here and there.
Make sure you put your email on the notify list if currently sold out as I grow a little bit all year round.
Anyway, there you have it another easy to grow, hardy and tasty, leafy green vegetable!
I grow lots of Plantago~Plantain species and the coloured text at the start of this sentence is a link to the rest.
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
