My friend Rita Amundsen in Oslo is soon one third of the way through her project vill365 (wild365) project in which she will every day for a year post a picture of dishes she preparesd with wild harvested food. She has just reached 100 days and the pictures of the creative dishes she has been making are simply stunning, an incredible diversity of local seasonal food. Go have a look!! It’s good that she lives so far away, I’d be round there all the time :)
I have two helpers in the garden this week and one of the jobs was to pull up all the garlic mustard / løkurt which was in danger of spreading big time! When I returned home, Tone was sitting outside patiently pulling off the young seed pods. They were cooked up in a failed attempt to make them less fibrous. She then separated the young green seeds for a tasty exclusive relish which we ate with dinner!
There are many great edimental forms of Allium cernuum / Nodding onion or Chicago onion. I call this one “Dark Scape” because of the dark flower shoot / scape. Bees love it too…
I’m excited by my first crop of Haskaps (Honeyberries or Blue Honeysuckle / Blåleddved). Even though the plants are only about 25-30 cm tall, all my five neglected plants had plenty of berries. I’m growing the following cultivars: “Borealis”; “Honey Bee”; “Indigo Gem”, “Tundra” and one other nameless.
I’m sure they’ll make a great dried berry and I’m keen to grow more. Unlike bilberries / blåbær, they don’t mind my alkaline soil!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_caerulea
I just discovered that Hablitzia was one of the ingredients in my first world record salad in 2001…. I had received both cuttings and seeds from Mona Hellberg in Alunda, Sweden in May 2000 after my first attempt from seed had failed the year before. Therefore, the leaves I used in that salad were from a plant about a year old, possibly the first time I tried them. Interestingly, I wrote in the recipe you’ll find in the link that I used “steamed leaves of Hablitzia tamnoides”, suggesting that I was unaware that they could be eaten raw!
Also, looking at the email correspondence with Mona Hellberg, I see that I’d told her that the Hablitzia seedlings (from my first attempt) had been eaten by a slug! I’ve never had problems with slugs since then….
Tonights greens included Sonchus oleraceus, Scorzonera, Diplotaxis, Chicory tops, purple mitsuba. daylilies, perennial buckwheat, Atriplex hortensis. Pea tops (including parsley pea), broad bean tops and Allium nutans flower stems..made into a stir fry with tofu, chili and buckwheat noodles..
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
