Category Archives: Edimentals

Terje Visnes’ salad photo on show!

Last week, I blogged about the opening of an exhibition in Trondheim by a photographer Terje Visnes who must have taken thousands of pictures for the local newspaper Adresseavisen over the years. He had taken pictures of one of my salads  two years ago: 
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=7849

I was chuffed then that he should choose one of the pictures taken that day for the exhibition and, naturally, had to go along and see it for myself! I visited unnanounced today and, to my surprise, Terje had also popped in, so there was an opportunity for a photo and a chat…and it turned out that Ingrid who runs the gallery knows my artist daughter….

The exhibition was nicely put together and the key to the salad ingredient picture (see the following link: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/536181539210264576) was made available to visitors and was apparently quite popular – you can look at the picture and guess what the vegetables are and check afterwards their identity! And of course there are several other great pictures that Terje has taken over the years on show!!

That photo shoot in my garden turned out to be an expensive day…as I just had to have one of the few copies that are being sold :) If you’re into vegetable diversity art, you’ll have to be quick to get one of the remaining pictures!! Perfect for better restaurants!

Location: RAMM Rammeverksted, Haldens gt. 1, Trondheim  (http://www.trondheimramm.no)

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Terje Visnes and his great photo of my salad ingredients! The frame and the use of the Enviromesh netting was a spur of the moment decision! He found both just lying around in my garden!
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Ingrid Oliv Olava Sørgjerd who runs RAMM gallery and picture frame workshop in Trondheim, where Terje Visnes’ exhibition is running to the end of November!

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Garden pictures 24th-25th September 2016

A collection of pictures from last weekend in the garden!

 

Edimentals in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanical Gardens

On Monday 12th September 2016 I visited the botanical gardens in Edinburgh, and I wandered around the collections looking for edimentals (edible ornamentals), many of which are also forest garden plants, in preparation for my edimentals walk the following Saturday. See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6572. Conclusion: there’s a lot of food in spring in the gardens!

Nepalese feast in Malvik

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got round to inviting botanist Kamal Acharya and his wife Sharmila Phuyal​ to see my garden!! They were amazed to see so many plants that they were familiar with from home and I blogged about this here:

Nepalese meet their onion in Malvik
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6118
Jimmu
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6131

They asked (begged?) couldn’t we come and make you a Nepalese meal with plants from your garden! I just had to find time for this and I’m very glad I did as it was a fantstic meal. Yes, I’m a very lucky man!!

On FB: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154245839730860.1073742717.655215859&type=1&l=6c748e5860

With Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland who took a few of the pictures!

Shidoke

On my trip to Japan in spring 2016, I found shidoke (シドケ / Parasenecio delphiniifolia syn. Cacalia delphiniifolia) leaves on sale in a supermarket in Ueda, Japan. This is the only place I saw it during my 3 week visit to Japan, so not one of the most popular sansai or wild mountain vegetables. I’ve been growing this plant for a few years now in a very shady spot in the garden and it’s just come into flower which prompted this post. It’s a great woodland ornamental grown for its leaves and an unusual forest garden edimental. It is also known as momijigasa (モミジガサ) which translates as “maple umbrella” due to the similarity of the leaves to Acer palmatum. It resembles yaburegasa (Syneilesis palmata) meaning “torn umbrella”. I didn’t see shidoke in the wild, but I did see yaburegasain in one place on the Izu peninsula. Both of these plants in the Asteraceae have edible young shoots, although shidoke is the preferred one. I bought a packet in that supermarket and my friends Ken and Masami who we visited that night were kind enough to prepare it as tempura! It is apparently pleasant tasting raw, but is most often cooked and served with a little soy sauce and roasted sesame seed once cool. Shidoke contains antioxidants that have been shown to inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6357 (Visit to Ken and Masami) and this blog post on FB at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154213988935860.1073742705.655215859&type=1&l=eb0bc1fced

Jimmu

This is what my new friends from Nepal called Allium wallichii, also known as Jimbu, Dunda, Yang, Himalayan onion, Nepal onion or Sherpa onion! They had actually never seen it live before as it grows at high altitudes :)

This is a little album showing off the wide range of forms I’m growing.. one of my favourite edimentals (edible ornamentals).
I wonder if a white form exists?
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“Dark form” – this one flowers later than the others, so this is an old picture!

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This one has a fantastic scape (flower stem)

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Fasciated Martagon Lily

From Wikipedia : Fasciation (pronounced /ˌfæʃiˈeɪʃən/, from the Latin root meaning “band” or “stripe”), also known as cresting, is a relatively rare condition of abnormal growth in vascular plants in which the apical meristem (growing tip), which normally is concentrated around a single point  and produces approximately cylindrical tissue, instead becomes elongated perpendicularly to the direction of growth, thus, producing flattened, ribbon-like, crested, or elaborately contorted tissue”

This deviant martagon lily (Lilium martagon) turned up in my garden in 2014. Martagon lily have one of the best tasting lily bulbs, and is a good edible for the forest garden as they are shade tolerant :)10374966_10152453461250860_4441261138567187365_n10418896_10152453461315860_6374752471051598322_n

 

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This is what happened when I ate it ;) I’ve now fully recovered :)

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Korean Aster on Edimentals

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Two years ago, I posted this picture of Aster scaber, commonly wild foraged in Korea and nowadays cultivated for markets in Korea and exported dried to Koreans in North America :)
The following is a collection of pages here  giving more information on this great perennial vegetable, or read the account in my book Around the World in 80 plants :)
1. Aster scaber and introducing Misoni: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3103
2. Pakora hasn’t met this selection of vegetables before:http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=5250
3. The wild greens of Korea: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=3635
4. Perennial vegetable tempura: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=2382
5. My first Korean aster flower: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=2008
6. Alexandra Berkutenko and the giant Edimentals of the Russian Far East:http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=208

Weekend garden pictures

A diverse selection of pictures from last weekend in the Edible Garden :)