Sherpa onion (Allium wallichii) and basil pesto for tonight’s dinner! Delicious!
I’ve been growing basil in my office at work since I was a student in Edinburgh in 1978, having been inspired by a fellow student the year before in Norwich… fast approaching 40 years as a basil grower then!
Hablitzia and a grape vine vying for the best place on the wall of my house :)
If Hablitzia, the Caucasian Spinach, had been discovered in Italy these unopen flower clusters would no doubt be known as Hablizzoli…Hablitzia broccolis or Broccoli di Hablizzias….Although small, they are the tastiest part of the plant so far…simply delicious :)
Two of the perennial beans, Phaseolus polystachios, have germinated :)
See my earlier blog about this exciting plant here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3600
Malvikodden is a fantastic mixed woodland area on the other side of the bay (Malvikbukta) from where I live, sadly largely felled by heavy machinery… anyway, it still has an amazingly rich flora with lowland species growing alongside plants you would normally associated with the mountains growing on rocks next to the fjord including purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) which normally blooms early in April. The south side of Malvikodden has/had one of the densest communities of song birds in our area thanks to the large diversity of deciduous trees. The only known breeding of stock dove (skogdue) in our region is here. A campaign “Bevar Malvikodden” (Save Malvikodden) lead by local man Pål Malvik luckily (by one vote) fought off plans to make the area a “Friluftsområdet” (recreational area) some years ago, including a large car park for hundreds of vehicles and a road to empty toilets on planned beaches on both sides of the area… We believed at the time that the area was too small that it would ever be felled…
A large Facebook album of pictures taken over many years: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151959609890860.1073741968.655215859&type=1&l=a1a2728485
Click the link below to get a list (Excel) of plants registered at Malvikodden and Malvikbukta, including 179 species of flowering plant, almost 10% of all found in Norway!
For the second night running a rainbow developed at about 10:40 and this time developed into one of the best displays I’ve seen, lasting almost 30 minutes when the sun went down…continually changing from a weak single bow that seemed to split at the top….developing into a full bow which landed in a spruce tree in the garden…and gradually fading as the sun set :)
