Divisi
How to grow Spider plant
Cleome gynandra · Cleomaceae
Photo: Kibet254 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Spider plant (Cleome gynandra) — known as chinsaga, dek, mgagani, tsisaka, munyevhe and 'African cabbage' — is a tough, fast leafy vegetable of the drylands. It laughs off the heat and dry spells that flatten softer greens, springs from dust-fine seed, and gives you your first leaf in about a month. The leaves are rich but bitter, so they are cooked, and usually blanched first — dipped for a moment in boiling water — to soften the bite. It asks for little: a rich, well-drained bed, a little feeding, and steady water while it is young, and it pays you back with leaf you can cut again and again for weeks. Its one real trick is the seed — fresh seed is 'asleep' and comes up badly, so rested seed and a warm, dark, damp seedbed are everything.
Vengolis · CC BY-SA 4.0 
Sosicles Ennius · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Days to maturity
- 60–90 days
- Row spacing
- 30 cm
- Plant spacing in the row
- 12 cm
- Sowing depth
- 0.5–1 cm
These are general figures for the crop, compiled from published agronomic references including FAO and CABI. The right choice for your field depends on your soil, rainfall and the yield you are aiming for.
Will spider plant actually do well on your land? Check your field against every crop in the catalogue — free, no signup. Run the free crop check →
Other names for Spider plant
spider plant · cat's whiskers · African cabbage · jjobyo · munyevhe · mgagani · chinsaga · mwianzo · saget · dek · tsisaka · yobyu
Working in buckets, bags or paces? The farming glossary turns the measures growers actually use into kilograms and hectares — what a 20 litre bucket of each crop really weighs, and how to size a field by walking it — alongside the Shona, Swahili, Ndebele and Yoruba words used in the field. Open the glossary →
Growing spider plant, stage by stage
Your spider-plant season, step by step — from waking fussy, dust-fine seed and coaxing it up in warm, dark soil, through thinning and feeding the tender young crop and guarding its leaf from aphids, to cutting leaf again and again and saving your own seed for next year.
- Get ready: seed and bed
- Sowing and germination — the make-or-break stage
- Establishment and thinning
- Vegetative leaf growth
- Repeated leaf harvest (cut-and-come-again)
- Use, store and save seed
12 step-by-step tasks in the app
Every task for spider plant — what to do, when to do it and why it matters — with the amounts worked out for your own field, reminders as each one falls due, and warnings before extreme weather.
Pests and diseases that attack spider plant
Divisi tells you which of these is a risk on your spider plant right now, when to walk the field looking for it, and what to do the moment you find it.
Frequently asked questions
How long does spider plant take to grow?
Spider plant takes about 60–90 days from sowing to maturity, though the exact length varies with variety, temperature and how the season runs.
What spacing should I use for spider plant?
Space spider plant rows about 30 cm apart, with roughly 12 cm between plants within the row.
How deep should spider plant be planted?
Sow spider plant at about 0.5–1 cm deep. Shallower risks drying out; deeper wastes seed energy before the shoot reaches light.
What pests and diseases attack spider plant?
The ones covered in this guide are Bagrada bug, Cabbage aphid. Each has its own page explaining how to identify, scout for and control it.
Grow spider plant with a plan, not a guess
Divisi turns this guide into a dated plan for your own field — what to do each week, reminders as tasks fall due, and warnings before extreme weather. Free for farmers, works offline.
Or check your field first