An easily grown plant, it succeeds in ordinary garden soil. Succeeds in any reasonably fertile light well-drained but moisture retentive soil in a sunny position. A frost tender plant, it is grown as a spring-sown annual in Britain. This species is cultivated in Korea for its use as a broom. The subspecies B. scoparia trichophylla. (Schmeiss.)Schinz.&Thell. is the form most often found in cultivation in Britain.

Young leaves - cooked. A delicious taste, they are used as a vegetable. A nutritional analysis is available. Some caution is advised, see the notes above on toxicity. Seed - dried and ground into a powder then mixed with cereals when making bread, biscuits etc. Very small and fiddly to use, it is also not a very reliable crop in Britain due to its late season of flowering. On a zero moisture basis, the seed contains 20.4 - 27.5% protein, 8.8 - 16% fat and 3.4 - 9.4% ash.

Seed - sow spring in a greenhouse and plant out in May. The seed can also be sown in situ in late April or early May.

Roadsides, ditches and wasteland in western N. America.