quinoa update

the quinoa sprouts are five days old and leaves are beginning to appear as the seed cases fall away...odd looking little critters and we will have something of a morphological comparison i find...quinoa ( Chenopodium quinoa ) and lambs quarters ( Chenopodium album ) are from the same genus and have ( research tells me ) a strong family resemblance...wherever i have grown jerusalem artichokes, lambs quarters have appeared...what the sunchokes attract that deposits lambs quarters' seeds is a mystery to me but they crop up frequently...i don't discourage them because, like quinoa, the greens and seeds are edible and lambs quarters are a native to boot...there are jerusalem artichokes in the community garden as i write and there were lambs quarters there last season as well...so there should be some again in spring ( and, if not, i have seeds )so i am looking forward to comparing the characteristics of the hemispheric cousins to see just how strong the likeness is...i begin to wonder just how old this genus is and if Chenopodium members are found in the old world as well as the new...like collards...if there are native Chenopodia in europe or asia it would be worth looking at that morphology too...ah...more research...where did i put my encyclopedia of world food crops? more as this story progresses...got so wrapped up in quinoa i forgot the second photo of wa wild potato sprout...it has established a third leaf and the stem is growing...they are a vining plant and will out grow the starter box soon and will be transplanted into larger pots to live in the real world and...if i do this correctly..produce some tubers to plant in the spring...stay tuned if this strike s our fancy.