Purslane

Wait until frost danger has passed and the soil has warmed to about 60F, then direct sow into fertile, well-drained ground and press the fine seed into the surface rather than burying it. Sow a fresh short row every two to three weeks for a summer of tender growth. Purslane is a heat-loving summer annual that will not germinate in cold ground - it waits for 60F soil, which is why it appears in late spring in cool regions and as early as February in the desert Southwest.

Once seedlings have their first true leaves, thin them to stand 4 to 6 inches apart. Eat the thinnings - they are the same crop, just smaller. Crowded purslane sprawls flat and stays small, while thinned plants of the cultivated strains grow upright with larger leaves and longer, easier-to-cut stems.

As soon as the small yellow flowers open, pinch or cut them off, and keep cutting the patch back hard. Do not let any plant carry seed capsules to maturity, and pull any volunteer that escapes into the wider garden. Purslane seed can start forming about three weeks after you notice the seedlings, and those seeds have been known to stay viable in the soil for 40 years. One ignored bloom cycle seeds your beds for decades, and running a tiller through a seeding patch only multiplies it.

Harvest whole plants, or cut the stems back to within two inches of the crown and the plant will push new growth for a cut-and-come-again supply through most of the summer. Take the young leaves and tender stem tips first. Pick in the morning if you want the tart, lemony edge and in the afternoon if you want it sweeter. Purslane keeps a live crown and taproot below the cut, so it regenerates readily. Its acid content swings on a daily cycle - malic acid builds overnight and converts toward glucose through the day, so the same plant tastes tangy at dawn and sweet by late afternoon.

When you pull spent plants at the end of the run, take every stem and fragment out of the bed - compost them hot, dry them completely on pavement, or bag them. Do not hoe them into the surface and do not till the bed while seed is present. The fleshy stems hold enough water to stay alive for days after they are cut or hoed, and they re-root at the nodes the moment the bed is watered. Pulled plants can even ripen a viable seed crop a week after they leave the ground, and tilling only buries and spreads that seed.