What it is
Teff (Eragrostis tef) is in the Poaceae (Grass) family. The world's smallest grain — tough, nutritious, gluten-free, and the base of Ethiopian injera. Heat-tolerant.
How to grow it
It wants full sun, water it low, and give it tolerant soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0–7.5. Space plants about Broadcast apart. Expect roughly 90–120. Warm-season annual.
How it's used
Teff is used: ground to flour (injera).
🔎 How to identify it
- Fine grass blades
- Wispy seed heads
- Very small seeds
Edibility
How to grow & propagate teff
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate teff
Grasses and grains are sown where they grow — they germinate fast in warm soil and don't like having their roots disturbed. The ornamental and native bunchgrasses can also be divided in spring. For the grain types, plant in a block rather than a single row so wind-pollination fills out the heads.
Growing teff in Texas
Give it full sun and tolerant soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Time your planting to our long warm season and watch the frost dates at both ends; the live weather tool on this site is built for exactly that.
Once it's rooted in, this is a low-water plant — overwatering does more harm than drought here. Water deeply to establish, then back off and let it prove how tough it is.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly 90–120 before you're harvesting. Harvest at peak and keep harvesting — most vegetables produce harder the more you pick, and one left to over-mature tells the plant its job is done. The part you're after: grain.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Keep this knowledge offline
A garden full of teff is a real asset when times get hard — but the know-how to grow, store, and use it shouldn't live only on a website you can't reach. That's why I keep a copy of the references I rely on on a local server at home. Project NOMAD is a free, open-source way to run Wikipedia, survival and medical guides, maps, and even a private AI on your own hardware — knowledge that keeps working with no internet, no cloud, no signal.
See how I keep my library offline →Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.