The message
from "michael adams" contains these words:

Fat hen is another name for "Good King Henry" a semi-wild spinach.
Chenopodium is the correct name. Another is "all goo".

Chenopodium is the generic name. They both belong to the goosefoot
family - Chenopodium bonus-henricus is Good King Henry, and Chenopodium
album is fat hen. They are similar, but easily told apart.

In my experience its hardly pernicious. You can buy seeds from Chiltern
Seeds.

It can be pulled up easily - too easily if you are cropping it. The
roots are shallow and as it likes fine soil...

It has triangular thickish leaves on individual stalks. The stalks can
be steamed separately as "poor man's asparagus."

It's a perennial that might thrive - and thus become pernicious
in a sunny well drained spot. It sprouts from a root crown every
year in much the same way as asparagus.

Neither comes from a crown, and both are annuals AFAIK - fat hen certainy is.

The yield is very small compared with any other spinach subsitute
you could choose - chard\seakale New Zealand spinach etc. There
are no flowers worth commenting on.

IME you get a lot more for your bagful than you do with spinach, for
instance. I collect it on the edges of local arable fields and can
usually fill two carrier bags at a foray. Sugar beet fields are
favourite as you don't get the weedkiller sprays during growth.

--
Rusty
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