Grape leaves

I love it when edible plants find their own place in my garden! I planted a hardy grape species Vitis coignetiae from the Far East including Japan, Korea and the Sakhalin. At least, I think this is what it is as I don’t have any records of planting it. I think it originated in a plant sale or cutting from the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim who have a large plant covering the whole wall of a garage. This also produces small fruits which are being increasingly used for wines in Japan (and some breeding is also being done); see the Japanese wiki page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A4%E3%83%9E%E3%83%96%E3%83%89%E3%82%A6. This species is dioecious (male and female flowers on different plants), so I guess there is more than one plant at Ringve and there’s little chance of mine producing fruit. 
I planted it originally in a shady spot at the corner of the extension (low roof in the picture) some 20 years or more ago. Today there are no leaves or vine above the original planting spot and a vine creeps about 5m from the root horizontally on the ground along the house wall, rooting, along the way, and climbs up into the yew tree I planted next to the house for the birds in winter. The grape has finally reached the top of the yew this summer and is the leaves are almost smothering the yew!

The vine running along the house wall!

I’m inspired by Eric Toensmeier’s work on the nutrition of perennial vegetables and specifically his article “The most nutritious perennial vegetables for cold climates” (see https://www.permaculturenews.org/2021/06/21/the-most-nutritious-perennial-vegetables-for-cold-climates) to use the leaves of my grape for more than the occasional wrapped dish. The taste of the leaf is good raw!
Eric wrote about cultivated grape leaves: “Grape leaf (Vitis vinifera). Worth eating for nutrition and not just because stuffed grape leaves are delicious. Extremely high in fiber, very high in calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin A, and high in Vitamin E.”
I did find a comment that the shoots of this species are eaten in Japan. 
See also the video in this post: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23629

 

The nutrition of perennial vegetables

Thanks to Eric Toensmeier in collaboration with 6 other groups including Annevi Sjöberg in Sweden and Karoline Nolsø Aaen & Tycho Holcomb in Denmark and Aaron Parker in the US for this interesting publication confirming the excellent nutritional properties of perennial vegetables. This confirms to me that integrating a range of perennial crops as vegetables in your diet is nutritionally highly beneficial, in addition to all the other benefits including using less energy, water, fertiliser and integrated in a forest garden system which allows us to co-exist with nature and a wide range of other organisms (birds, insects etc.).
The report can be downloaded here: The Nutrition of Perennial Vegetables

Scything the meadow

There’s a small meadow area in the garden that I scythe once a year to maintain it.  Yesterday I raked up the dried material. This area had clearly been maintained by the previous owners as it doesn’t take long before it reverts to woodland. When they bought the land in 1939 there were sheep grazing here.
Just a few pictures:

Old aerial photos (norgeibilder.no) show that the garden had much less vegetation at the beginning and this meadow remnant has been kept clear from the start! The 3 pictures below were taken over a span of 70 years in 2016, 1976 and 1947.

Flowering Aster scaber

September is the month when several Asteraceae are in flower including one of my favourite perennial vegetables and edimentals Aster scaber (yes, I know it’s officially Doellingeria scabra) or chamchwi in Korea where it’s cultivated commercially for Korean markets around the world (often sold dried). It’s also popular with pollinating insects as can be seen in the gallery taken this week here.

….and a parasitic wasp on the flowers:

 

See this page for more links to articles about this plant on this blog: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6080
It’s also one of the 80 in my book Around the World in 80 plants.