Salt Bush

Old Man Salt Bush is a familiar sight over large areas of the dry inland of Australia. It is a sprawling grey-blue shrub, up to 3 metres high and sometimes spreading to 5 metres wide. A long living plant, it grows strongly after periods of summer rain, producing long tassels of flowering seed heads.

Salt bush seeds were ground and roasted for damper but these days we utilise the large fresh or blanched Salt bush leaves as a wrap around meat or fish, in salads or as a leafy bed for grilled meat or vegetables. Its dried leaves with their  unique salty flavour, make a superb crunchy herb sprinkle.

The leaves are also dried  for use in  bread, as well as low sodium seasoning on grills, pasta and dukkah and they can be harvested year round.

A tough native perennial, handling drought, wind and poor, salty soils with attractive silvery foliage. Before planting your seeds, soak them overnight to remove salts that act as a germination inhibitor. The germination period is two to four weeks. The young plants will struggle to establish if conditions are too dry and barren.

The plants can an be kept small and grown in pots if harvested regularly and with regular pruning they make a great gap filler or edible hedge. A great stabiliser in erosion zones and a live stock grazing plant