When I look into my purple gazing ball, what does the future of vegetables look like? Orach.

Move over kale, there is a new veggie trend and its purple.

These ancient little leaves are packed with nutrients and are much prettier and more edible than kale.

Never heard of Orach? No worries. Neither had I until last year. Then suddenly it started to appear everywhere (thankfully not in the form of pizza crusts or chips — I’m looking at you cauliflower.) During the Free The Seeds event this spring, Land to Hand Montana gave away 70,000 packs of seeds and it seemed like 10,000 of them were orach. So if you haven’t heard of it, you will soon.

Orach is also know as mountain spinach. It’s a member of the amaranth family and has been around much longer than spinach. And, gardeners will appreciate this, it doesn’t bolt as fast as spinach! It tastes slightly nutty and is great in salads, soups — anywhere you’d usually use greens (in this case, purples).

It’s considered a superfood, which means it’s packed with an alphabet full of nutrients. And it has a bunch of other healthy immune boosting, anti-inflamatory properties, so you no longer have to choke down that kale for a nutrient boost.

Bonus points: It’s easy to grow. It’s drought tolerant and doesn’t require much fussing. Even I could grow it without the Boss’ help. However, I would never do that because he would not appreciate me just throwing things in the garden without his approval and direction.

We haven’t planted our orach yet, so it’s not not late for you to jump on the orach bandwagon. And since we haven’t planted it yet, I don’t have any photos, so please enjoy these photos I pilfered from the internet.