Presenting an album of pictures from BG Vienna showing edible plants I found in the collections and talked about during my walk and talk arranged by Arche Noah!
The entrance to the garden
Hosta kikutii var pygmaea
Hosta siebodiana “Elegans”
Scorzonera austriaca in the wild garden
Water leaf or Indian salad (Hydrophyllum)
Osmorhiza occidentalis
Cryptotaenia japonica “Atropurpurea”
Apium (Helioscadium) repens is presumably edible (sometimes classified as a subspecies of Apium nodiflorum)
Bunium bulbocastaneum
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely)
Trachystemon orientalis
Peucedanum officinale is the source of a gum!
Elaeagnus angustifolia
Kalimeris incana
Gunnera tinctoria is one of the 80 in my book!
Labelled as Allium oreophilum , which it isn’t, looks like a good form of Allium senescens or hybrid!
Not this either, looks like the great Allium imposter Allium cyathophorum var farreri
Hemerocallis
Senecio cannabifolius…used as a vegetable in the Far East. I’ve lost mine, any chance of a new starter Trond Høy?
Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), a plant with a multitude of uses…many food uses, medicinal and the leaves have also been used as plates!
Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Albania’s most popular wild foraged edible!
Lilium pomponium, a lily from southern France and north Italy – the bulbs have been used for food!
Allium victorialis grows in the Alps
Meum athamaticum
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Serratula coronata – I sowed this one for the first time…used for food in Korea..
Crithmum maritimum, death samphire, but perfectly edible!
There was a bed of 6-7 different Angelica species including this one, Angelica purpurascens
Angelica anomala
Angelica gigas
The smallest species I’ve seen, Angelica polymorpha from East Asia
Angelica amurensis
Angelica acutiloba
Angelica anomala
Aster ageratoides
Aster (Eurybia) macrophylla, a Native Americam food plant!
Aster glehnii is used in the Far East
It’s not often I see Aster scaber (see my book) in botanical gardens!
Basella alba and cousin Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine)
Talinum paniculatum
Viola alba
Siberian pea tree (Caragana) growing an producing masses of small beans in the warmth of Vienna
Ostrich fern growing well in damp soil by a stream
Xanthorrhoea (grass tree or black boy) from Australia was considered as a future crop for sugar in the 19th century
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Sedum
Parietaria, edible non-stinging nettle
Laportea canadensis, Canadian wood nettle
Urtica cannabina
Althaea officinalis, Marshmallow
Callirhoe is a great edimental in the Mallow family from North America
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Hibiscus trionum
There’s a good collection of edible Sanguisorba species (edible young shoots), most better than overrated S. officinalis (salad burnet). This is Sanguisorba albiflora
Sanguisorba tenuifolia var purpurea
Sanguisorba hakusanensis
Sanguisorba obtusa
Entrance to the administration building where I met the garden’s director!
Next to the entrance to the entrance to the administration building…Host’s Hostas of course!
I was given a tour of the greenhouses by Frank who was also a member of Arche Noah! This included a collection of vanilla species…
The participants of the walk and talk. Thanks to Arche Noah’s Ursula (in front) for organising my visit!
In stark contrast to the diversity of the botanical garden, this is the next door neighbour!
Mission accomplished! I arrived here in Austria over a week ago! 3 garden tours and two seminars on and I’m now sitting with some porcini pasta and some Austrian beer in Saltzburg before my train back to Vienna and home tomorrow. After 7 hours in Saltzburg, I still haven’t heard any Mozart or The Sound of Music! Thanks to Arche Noah for inviting me
My last gig in Austria was a tour in the young botanical garden in Saltzburg. Despite its youth (from 1986), it had one of the best collection of unusual edibles I’ve seen in a dedicated garden to the world’s cultural plants! Of course the ornamental beds also had a lot of food…
The garden entrance
Right next to the gate was a bed full of edibles like Allium moly, various Lilium species, Dahlia and Camassia
Allium giganteum
The following pictures are from the cultural garden collection
Peltaria alliaceae
Orychophragmus violaceus
Sea kale, Cramb meyeniie maritima
Perennial buckwheat, Fagopyrum cymosum
Hibiscus acetosella (with a pleasant sour taste)
Zingiber mioga, Japanese ginger
Maca, Lepidium meyenii
Canna indica
Gynura crepioides
Plantago coronopus
Altananthera sissoo
And now some other edibles in the garden, Gunnera (probably manicata)…we talked about Nalca, the slighty smaller Chilean Gunnera chilensis
Aralia elata
Polygonum hydropiper, marked poisonous! Really?
Horseradish….apfelkren!
Begonia flowers are edible, this was a demonstration of Begonia breeding
A few pictures from my first three days in Schiltern and Austrian Seed Savers organisation Arche Noah’s amazing show gardens. The main show gardens are in the village of Schiltern in Langenlois, an important wine growing area, with warm, dry summers and relatively mild winters.
I’m doing a series of talks and garden guided tours this week starting here in Schiltern, then Vienna and finally in the Alps near Salzburg!
…and I got to try one of these broadforks! This one had been handmade for Arche Noah!
Seed art at the gate!
The show gardens are in the grounds of an old cloister..
The sales area has a great selection with many perennial edibles including Crithmum, Angelica dahurica etc.!
Purple mitsuba for sale
Angelica dahurica for sale
Caraway (karve) on sale
Hosta on sale as a perennial vegetable!
Toona sinensis
Sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Hablitzia tamnoides
Curly whirly onions, Allium senescens var glaucum
Crithmum maritimum
Rumex scutatus glaucus
Impressive elderberry with my host Claudia and organiser of my tour! Thank you!!
Bee hive
Library
Great outdoors restaurant
Lunch: risotto with an old grain! Did they make a special effort for me?
Isolation tent!
Perennial rye (from, I think, Tim Peters)
Old fruit trees
The countryside and village…
A demonstration of breeding lettuces
Sea Kale on one of two perennial beds
Asphodeline lutea…edible flowers and the tubers were traditionally cooked and eaten with cooked figs by the ancient Greeks and Romans according to Cornucopia II
Scorzonera for seed
Diplotaxis erucoides (wasabi rocket) has an excellent wasabi like taste
Winterkefe pea is one I’ve grown for several years (originally over winter in my old greenhouse). It originates here at Arche Noah
A row of Hablitzia is growing slowly and is maybe not too happy in the heat… shadier place would probably be better!
Catawissa onion (etasjeløk)
Rumex scutatus glauca
Oxyria digyna, mountain sorrel seems to grow well in the lowlands too!
Nice to see Sideritis syriaca, Greek mountain tea in the herb garden
Arch Noah seed packets in the shop
Allium moly (gul-løk) is from the mountains of Spain and is a great edimental
My talk was on Sunday in the cloister buildings
Typha (cattails / dunkjevle) in the courtyard pond! Supermarket of the swamps!
New friends after the talk..chef Johan Reisinger top left, Wolfgang Palme top right (vegetable researcher at the Horticultural College and Research Institute Schönbrunn, Vienna) and his good lady Angelika Palme who did an excellent job at translating!!
On Monday 12th June, I joined an informative tour of the Arche Noah show gardens lead by the head gardener. The tour was for staff and guides.
Nettle water with perennial kale Ewiger kohl (Eeuwige moes)
Chick peas
Broad beans are difficult to grow due to a number of pests and diseases
Millet for a future drier cilmate
I also visited the seed bank…
Humidity instrument for checking that the humidity is low enough for long term storage
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Arche Noah are in the course of changing database (Access) as they have outgrown it!
I was very pleased to be invited to give a talk organised by the Curtis Museum in Alton, Hampshire, UK, not far from where I grew up in Eastleigh, Hants.
In my book I introduce the Hampshire towns of Alresford (watercress), Selborne (Gilbert White and sea kale) and Alton as the “Hampshire perennial vegetable triangle” or the UK hotspot of perennial vegetable domestication. Alton is included as the home of botanist William Curtis, who was Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London in the 1770s. He was also a friend of Gilbert White! He wrote a pamphlet, ‘Directions for the culture of the Crambe maritima or Sea Kale, for the use of the Table’ in 1799 to bolster efforts in introducing it as a market vegetable.
See the album of pictures from a wander around Alton with Sheila John of the Curtis museum, edimentals tour of the Allen Gallery garden and later talk there! See the album below!
Other related posts:
On the bus between Winchester and Alton, a sign pointing towards Gilbert White’s House (and also Jane Austen’s)!
Wandering around Alton with my host Sheila John, a charity shop with a Hosta plant for sale…
On the road where William Curtis the botanist lived, a Wisteria in full flower…had to resist having a taste of the flowers ;)
William Curtis’ house and Sheila John of the Curtis Museum
The chalk River Wey with wild watercress
The next talk after mine was about the Watercress Line!
Watercress had in the past been cultivated on the Flood Meadows near the centre of Alton…
The Flood Meadows in Alton where watercress had been cultivated in the past
The Flood Meadows in Alton where watercress had been cultivated in the past
Brooklime, Veronica beccabunga in the flood meadows
The Curtis Museum
The Curtis Museum
Entrance to the Curtis Museum
The venue for the talk, the Allen Gallery (after artist W. H: Allen); see https://hampshireculturaltrust.org.uk/allen-gallery
I lead an edimentals walk for a half hour in the garden before the talk. Sheila John showed me around beforehand and we found a number of excellent edibles :)
A little herb garden!
Viola spp.
Tulips out!
One of the staff had brought a Hosta plant along to my talk ;)
I was shown the collection of information about William Curtis the Botanist…
I prepared a couple of slides specially as I was at the Curtis Museum, this included this picture I took at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London where Curtis was demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti from 1771-1777! The Curtis Border at Chelsea celebrates some of the plants we associate with the man and with reference on the plant label to his Botanical Magazine! It seems that Curtis introduced day lily Hemerocallis fulva (one of the 80 in my book) to the UK :)
Slide showing the front of Curtis’ sea kale pamphlet, some interesting quotes from it and a picture of a sea kale pot and sign telling about the pamphlet at Chelsea!
Last night, the wonderful folks of Ottawa had what was advertised as “A night with Stephen Barstow”. A great communicative crowd too and thanks for making my book load considerably lighter! I’ll come back and finish my story sometime soon :)
Last time I was in the city I talked in All Saints Church! Thanks all! Hope to see many more perennials next time!
Thanks to Jordan of Just Food for organising the talk in the crypt of Ottawa’s Centretown United Church! No coffins this time, unlike my memorable talk at the Incredible Edible Todmorden church when half the “congregation” were dead and a coffin was waiting for me next to where I talked ;) See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1326
Food for thought
A great talkative congregation! My friend Telsing of Aster Lane Edibles with head turned…
When I was talking about Jerusalem Artichokes (now also known as Snowchokes!), I mentioned having found a coupleof caches of tubers by the river (Rideau), presumably stored but not eaten by rodents!
The habitat for the snowchoke caches, the river in the background.
…and I had fun showing this slide…with both T-shirt creater Patricia Wallinger and birthday girl Telsing Andrews, for who it was created, present in the audience :)
