Bullfinches (dompap) take a very wide range of seeds in my garden including hawthorn, rowan, nettle and Norway spruce, as well as buds of different trees, but this was the first time I’d seen them taking guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) seed and I could see them discarding the flesh of the berries. Even when they have a rich supply of sunflower seeds, they will continue also to take natural food.
Daily Archives: December 26, 2022
Xmas diversity from the rhizosphere
Presenting this year’s 30 rhizosphantastic Xmas vegetables, all roasted in the oven, served as every year in the last 40 with nut roast, bedecked with the following seeds / bulbils: alpine bistort / harerug (Polygonum viviparum), Himalayan balsam / kjempefringfrø (Impatiens glandulifera), evening primrose / nattlys (Oenothera biennis) and opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). The tubers are listed below the pictures.
The 30 tubers, roots and rhizomes in the picture are:
Solanum tuberosum (potato / potet: 11 varieties)
Daucus carota (carrot / gulrot)
Oxalis tuberosa (oca: 2 varieties)
Arctium lappa (burdock)
Scorzonera hispanica (Scorzonera / scorsonnerot eller svartrot)
Tigridia pavonia (cacomitl)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinakk)
Beta vulgaris (beetroot / rødbete)
Tropaeolum tuberosum (mashua)
Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / jordskokk : 3 varieties)
Brassica rapa (turnip / nepe)
Brassica napus (swede / kålrot)
Dahlia (Dahlia / georginer)
Polymnia sonchifolia (yacon)
Sagittaria latifolia (wapato)
Allium cepa (onion)
Oca harvest 2022
Xmas isn’t Xmas without Oca and a hoard of other tubers, served with the traditional nut roast. Pre-xmas preparations includes the annual oca harvest. Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) is a short day root crop hailing from the central and southern Andes. When harvested at the first frosts, yields are poor, the plants needing a long mild autumn to fatten up the tubers for the festive season. I therefore grow my oca in large buckets which we bring into the extension to the house at the first hard frosts which was late October this year. We don’t heat the extension which is normally a fairly constant 5-10C in winter and hence a good place to store vegetables and other plants like my bay tree (Laurus nobilis). There’s no sunlight and I don’t use artificial light so there’s no diurnal variation in temperature either. The oca plants don’t grow vegetatively, but miraculously the tubers do grow over the few weeks to harvest:
