Growing Purslane: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Purslane has a genuine identity crisis: most gardeners spend years pulling it as a weed before realizing the same succulent, mildly citrusy leaves are a legitimate salad green, and a cultivated selection exists specifically bred for eating.
Frost-sensitive despite the weedy reputation
Direct-seed after your last frost, sown about half an inch apart and a quarter inch deep, then thinned to 4 to 6 inches apart. Transplanting also works, sown 3 to 4 seeds per cell in midspring and moved outside 8 inches apart after frost danger passes, handled carefully since the roots don’t like disturbance. Despite behaving like an unstoppable weed once established, purslane is sensitive to hard frost and won’t survive planting too early.
Cut, don’t pull
Harvest by cutting stems back to within 2 inches of their base rather than pulling whole plants. New stems and leaves regrow continually for several weeks from that same base, giving repeated harvests from a single planting.
Purslane has no well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. At 4 plants per square foot, it’s a low, sprawling ground-level filler in the Garden Designer, useful in hot, dry spots that stress out less heat-tolerant greens.
Source: Purslane: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Purslane · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 4-8 in
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Either works.
When to plant purslane, by zone
Every zone purslane grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 29–May 6 | May 20–May 27 | Jul 9–Jul 16 |
| 3a & 3b | May 9–May 16 | May 30–Jun 6 | Jul 19–Jul 26 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 24–May 1 | May 15–May 22 | Jul 4–Jul 11 |
| 5a & 5b | Apr 19–Apr 26 | May 10–May 17 | Jun 29–Jul 6 |
| 6a & 6b | Apr 4–Apr 11 | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 14–Jun 21 |
| 7a & 7b | Mar 20–Mar 27 | Apr 10–Apr 17 | May 30–Jun 6 |
| 8a & 8b | Mar 4–Mar 11 | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 14–May 21 |
| 9a & 9b | Jan 25–Feb 1 | Feb 15–Feb 22 | Apr 6–Apr 13 |
| 10a & 10b | Jan 9–Jan 16 | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Mar 21–Mar 28 |
| 11a & 11b | Dec 11–Dec 18 | Jan 1–Jan 8 | Feb 20–Feb 27 |
Harvest dates are about 50 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Purslane plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 4-8 in.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species purslane (Portulaca oleracea sativa): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells this cultivated selection of the same species most gardeners know as a garden weed; the cultivated form has larger, more upright leaves bred for eating. (source)
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy purslane seeds
High Mowing Organic Seeds (each supplier's purslane seeds)
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing purslane" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
Pin this for later
Growing Purslane: A succulent-leaved salad green, edible and mildly citrusy, that most gardeners know as a common weed rather than a deliberately grown crop.
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