24 hour oat bread…

You maybe remember I posted about the real Danish rye bread I made a couple of weeks back? See here
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=835

I wondered what the bread would be like using other grains, so I tried 100% wholegrain oat! Even I though I made it damper than the rye bread (that was a bit crumbly) the oat bread wasn’t such a success and was quite crumbly after 24 hours at about 75C….

Perfectly edible and quite tasty but there will be a lot of crumbs in the next two weeks (the time it will take me to eat these 3 loaves)

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Sulfur containing winter greens

The most hardy winter greens in my garden are mostly rich in sulfur compounds including various onions (Allium) and onion-tasting brassica, Garlic mustard (løkurt), Alliaria petiolata or is it just coincidence that Alliums and Alliaria are both very hardy. 
Does the sulfur play a role in giving these plants hardiness? The only other plant that I can harvest a little of in midwinter is Hablitzia tamnoides (although it turns red in the coldest weather).

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Allium cernuum also stays green through the winter and can be harvested even in the coldest weather!
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Garlic mustard (løkurt), Alliaria petiolata is a short-lived annual / biannual that germinates in the autumn here and the leaves often make it through the winter and can be eaten in midwinter!

Planting Garlic

I finally got the garlic planted today after a week of rain and temperatures up to +10C had melted most of the frost in the soil!
Here are the garlic sorted for planting. This year’s varieties : Aleksandra, Estonian Red, Lochiel, Ävrö, Cledor, Thermidrome, Early Purple Wight and Vallelado (the picture shows all the varieties sorted and ready to plant!). I also planted topsets of varieties with large bulbils to bulk them up (planted close together)!
Some had sprouted as I had harvested them too late…it will be interesting to see if they all make it through the winter! I planted deep this year at about 10cm so that can settle in before the next cold spell!
I also sowed parsnip (pastinakk) today!
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Long-tailed tits

I see long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) (Norw: stjertmeis) in the garden usually only once each winter. Unlike most tits, they wander during the winter…and a small group of 8 birds passed through the garden today. I usually “spot” them when I hear their characteristic call.  I was planting garlic in the garden and rushed inside for my camera! I was surprised to see them foraging on the ground under the bird feeder. I can’t recall seeing them taking food from my feeder before, nor seen them on the ground. However, they had gone again after about 15 minutes. It’s the white-headed rase (ssp. caudatus) we have here!
Long-tailed tits was one of the few birds I recognised in Japan in the spring!
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I was pleased with the pictures despite it being very dark!
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