Category Archives: Perennial vegetables

Habby-Dandy MacCheese 

A wonderful birthday dinner yesterday!
As is the tradition since I left home, my birthday dinner has been Macaroni Cheese with rhubarb crumble for dessert. Mac Cheese was the first veggie dish I ate back in the 60s – Mum took us to Edwin Jones in Southampton (the superstore of the time) where they served it in the restaurant. We loved it and it became a traditions for Mum to make this every Tuesday! Nowadays, we use whole grain spelt macaroni with masses of greens…Hablitzia or Caucasian spinach ( stjernemelde) and dandelion (løvetann). On the top, we used dried alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils! 
This one time rhubarb crumble is the only time I eat sugar each year, something I’ve kept up now for the last 20 years.
Dedicating this to my dear Mum…it’s after all her 65th birth day too!

Today’s perennial catch

23rd April 2020 perennial greens used in a delicious quiche (eggepai):
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel)
Rumex acetosa  (sorrel / engsyre) 
Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke)
Urtica dioica (stinging nettle / brennesle)
Allium senescens
Heracleum sphondylium (common hogweed /  kystbjørnekjeks)
Aegopodium podograria (ground elder / skvallerkål)



Victory falafels

Falafels can be home grown over most of Norway and if we are serious about climate change should become standar fare in kitchens, restaurants and supermarkets throughout the country.  Dig for VICTORY against climate change!
The ingredients:
Broad beans / fava beans (bondebønner); grown in Malvik and stored dried
Victory onion (seiersløk) grows particularly well in the arctic (or replace with garlic or ramsons)
Golpar (spice from ground seed of any member of the Heracleum genus, including invasive Tromsøpalme, Heracleum persicum)
Barley flour (bygg) – I used100% whole grain
Eggs to bind
Fry in oil (sorry, I used imported olive oil)
(Optional: house grown chilis)
Decoration: Oxalis triangularis
 

Earliness and diversity in Victory Onion

Victory onion or seiersløk (Allium victorialis) in Norwegian has one of the most widespread geographic distributions in the Allium genus from the Pyrenees  to the Far East. In Norway, it’s naturalised in the Lofoten Islands, a few places in Nordland county and one location in Hardanger (Granvin). There is evidence to believe that it was originally introduced to Norway by the Vikings. I have plants from different parts of its range in my garden and there is a large difference between them as to when they begin to shoot in the spring, the ones deriving from Japan leafing out a few weeks earlier than the ones from Europe and Norway, although a plant received as Allium ochotense (nowadays considered by most as a synonym of A. victorialis), which originated in the Tromsø botanical garden, is probably from the Russian Far East and is also a late variety. Below are pictures of most of my plants taken on 19th and 20th April 2020. I have about 5 other accessions, two not big enough to photograph, one from the Kola peninsular has not grown well and will be moved to a new location, 3 more were planted this spring. two donated by the Oslo botanical garden and one a variegated form from Japan: Allium victorialis subsp. platyphyllum ‘Chiri Fu’.

1) From a seed trade with Iku Kubota in Japan in 2002.

2) From Tei Kobayashi in Japan in 2016 (subsp. platyphyllum or broad-leaved victory onion) has a flower bud extending

3) From seed from the Reykjavik botanical garden in 2009, originatin from the Sakhalin in the Russian Far East. This one also has a flower bud and has broadish leaves.

4) Received from the Tromsø botanical garden in 2002

5) From Granvin in Norway in 2012

6) From Merete in Lofoten in 2003

7) From Anja Angelsen. Krogtoft, Vestvågøy, Lofoten, Norway (2009)
8) From Massif Central in the French Alps (kindly sent to me by the Haut-Chitelet alpine garden in 2013)
9) From naturalised plants in Hopen, Nordland, Norway in 201310) Probably Allium victorialis Cantabrica AMH 7827 (collected by Antoine Michael Hoog, the son of one of the founders from Van Tubergen); I received it as Cantabria in 2008.

 

The mossy dandelion

It’s 100 years since Vilmorin-Andrieux’s The Vegetable Garden: Illustrations, descriptions, and culture of the garden vegetables of cold and temperate climates was published! The plant I most associate with this fantastic book is what I’ve called “The Legendary Moss-Leaved Dandelion”. I fell in love with the image of this variety of dandelion when I first saw it (see below) and I later blogged about how I sought after and was finally able to grow it myself here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1193
There was even a T-shirt printed in its honour (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1043)
However, it was only yesterday that I discovered how mossy looking it can be in the early spring when I tried to clean moss away from the young dark leaves of a plant I was harvesting for a salad ;)




Naturalised Giant Bellflower

No doubt introduced by the previous owners here as an ornamental and despite the fact I spent a lot of time trying to eradicate it from parts of the garden, Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke) is nowadays one of my most important springtime vegetables used both cooked and raw. It has naturalised under Hazel in part of the garden! Always nice to see how plants find their own way to the best spots it grows happily alongside Aegopodium podograria (ground elder / skvallerkål). See the excerpt from my book Around the World in 80 plants below. Here is the excerpt from Around the World in 80 plants (I’m happy to send signed copies within Norway). “When I first moved to my present garden, there was one weed that I struggled to eradicate from my cultivated beds, Campanula latifolia or giant bellflower. The roots in particular were almost impossible to dig out, having a knack of germinating in the most difficult places. Then, one day I was reading the Norwegian book “Gratis Mat av Ville Planter (Free Food from Wild Plants; Holmboe, 1941). I learnt that my worst weed had been wild gathered for food by farmers in my area in the 17th century, a tradition which probably died out soon afterwards. The leaves and stems were collected in springtime and made into a soup. Similar stories have also survived from other parts of Norway and Sweden. Storklokke (literally large bell) is considered to be one of the most commonly used wild food plants in the past in Norway. Both the leaves and roots were used, the latter also ground and added to bread.”
It was the nephew of Bishop Gunnerus (after whom the genus Gunnera was named) who published this in Norway’s first flora published 3 years after the Bishop’s death! It was stated that “storklokke” deserves to be considered as one of the best springtime greens! I totally agree! Thanks to the previous owners (Johansen) for planting it for me!




 

Dandies, habbies, sand leeks, sorrel and sweet cicely

7th April 2020 perennial greens used in a quinoa stir-fry:
Taraxacum officinale (dandelion / løvetann)
Allium scorodoprasum (sand leeks / bendelløk) (these grow semi-wild in seaweed on my sea kale bed)
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel)
Rumex acetosa “Belleville” (sorrel / engsyre)