Growing Saltwort: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Saltwort is a Japanese salt-marsh green with a crisp, briny bite similar to samphire, adapted to salty soil but perfectly happy growing in ordinary garden dirt too.
Sow thick, no thinning required
Direct-seeding is recommended, done anytime from spring through midsummer, an eighth to a quarter inch deep at 1 to 2 seeds per inch, in rows 12 to 18 inches apart. Unlike most crops, saltwort doesn’t need thinning; it continues to grow well even sown thickly. Successive sowings every few weeks keep a continuous harvest coming.
Harvest before it gets woody
Leaves can be harvested for fresh use once plants are established, but timing matters here: harvest promptly rather than letting the plant grow too long, since delayed harvest produces woody stems and leaf tips too prickly to eat comfortably.
Saltwort has no well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. At 9 plants per square foot, it’s a dense, quick-turnover specialty green for the Garden Designer, an interesting option for a bed with naturally saltier soil.
Source: Saltwort: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Saltwort · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 0.5-1.5 ft
Method: Direct sow: Direct-sow outside. It doesn't transplant well, or doesn't need the extra time indoors.
When to plant saltwort, by zone
Every zone saltwort 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 | Not usually | May 20–May 27 | Jul 4–Jul 11 |
| 3a & 3b | Not usually | May 30–Jun 6 | Jul 14–Jul 21 |
| 4a & 4b | Not usually | May 15–May 22 | Jun 29–Jul 6 |
| 5a & 5b | Not usually | May 10–May 17 | Jun 24–Jul 1 |
| 6a & 6b | Not usually | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 9–Jun 16 |
| 7a & 7b | Not usually | Apr 10–Apr 17 | May 25–Jun 1 |
| 8a & 8b | Not usually | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 9–May 16 |
| 9a & 9b | Not usually | Feb 15–Feb 22 | Apr 1–Apr 8 |
| 10a & 10b | Not usually | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Mar 16–Mar 23 |
| 11a & 11b | Not usually | Jan 1–Jan 8 | Feb 15–Feb 22 |
Harvest dates are about 45 days after the sow or plant-out date.
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 Saltwort plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 9 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 0.5-1.5 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species saltwort (Salsola komarovii): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells this species plain, without competing named cultivars; it's a specialty crop grown for its distinctive briny flavor rather than bred variation. (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 saltwort seeds
True Leaf Market (each supplier's saltwort seeds)
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a clear consensus of positive, independent reviews, or ones we bought and use ourselves. Each item on our gear page says which.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing saltwort" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
Pin this for later
Growing Saltwort: A Japanese salt-marsh green with a crisp, briny bite similar to samphire, one of the few crops here adapted to salty soil though it grows fine in ordinary dirt too.
Save to Pinterest