Mexican Mountain Spinach (Orache)

Mountain spinach solves a problem most desert gardeners run into every summer: real spinach bolts and quits the second the heat shows up. Orache doesn’t. This is a heat-loving green that thrives when true spinach has long since given up, producing tender, mild leaves in shades of green, red, or gold depending on the variety, all through the months when your greens bed would otherwise be empty.
It grows tall — often three to six feet — so it does more than feed you, it can act as a light screen or windbreak for more delicate crops nearby. The leaves cook down just like spinach and work in anything you’d use spinach for, but with a plant that’s actually built for the conditions you’re growing in instead of fighting against them.
If you’ve been chasing greens through a Mojave summer and coming up short, this is the one that was made for exactly that fight. Let a few plants go to seed and you’ll have a reliable source of summer greens for good.