With summer just about beginning here (well, it has just reached 20C five times this year), this is what my biggest perennial vegetable looks like today….and, yes, I’m standing up at the base of the plant and I’m 1.83m tall! I didn’t harvest that much this year as I was away so much!
Phyteuma spicatum is the most popular bee plant in my garden at the moment and a great edimental….a very old root vegetable in Europe, mentioned already by Gerard’s Herball from 1597, but best known as a vegetable in France and Germany.
These pictures are from a bed in my garden where I originally planted Phyteuma nigrum (P. spicatum subsp. nigra) many years ago. It must have crossed with other plants elsewhere in my garden as there’s now a range of colours from white to almost black!
The name rapunsel is related to rapa (turnip) due to its use as a root vegetable!
Before my talk at St. Koloman on the edge of the Alps last week, I saw both P. spicatum and P. orbiculare growing nearby in the wild for the first time! Therefore, I made a special slide for the occasion (see picture). The picture of the roots was from my garden! They were quite tasty!
This video was taken in June 2016 during the big diamond back moth invasion..
A French Dandelion cultivar, early and productive with very long leaves!
Probably the same as or an improved form of Large Green Montmagny Dandelion in The Vegetable Garden from 1920 (I haven’t checked the French edition)…still available at http://www.vilmorin-jardin.fr/recherche-produit/legumes/potageres/pissenlit-vert-de-montmagny-ameliore/1-6-789/
One of the great things of travelling and doing these talks is all the fantastic people you meet. Wolfgang Palme (and his lovely wife Angelika who also acted as my interpreter in Schiltern and Vienna) was one of these! I met them first at my talk in Schiltern and I was then very much looking forward to visiting City Farm where they run courses and have developed a diversity garden for children, including several of the perennials in my book! Wolfgang has also written a great looking book on harvesting vegetables during the winter (I include a few sample pages in the album below!)
I look forward to collaborating more in the future!!
See also http://www.cityfarm.wien/
Google Earth image of city farm with the site of the diversity garden and the Kammermeieri, a historical building where my lecture was held!
Wolfgang Palme and myself after my talk at Arche Noah in Schiltern!
Wolfgang had made a special effort of decorating the entrance, stairs and lecture theatre with perennial veggies! Here’s Hosta!
ALlium tuberosum
…and this artichoke on the stairs!
The lecture room!
Kammermeierei
The diversity garden
Wolfgang’s book on winter harvested vegetables!
…includes Silene!
…and this sowing plan for harvesting in the winter months must have been a labour of love!
After 11 days of mostly fast food, it was good to get home this evening to a jungle of slow food….
Ingredients: Hablitzia, Rumex acetosa, Rumex patientia, Myrrhis (young seeds), Hemerocallis middendorfii and H. lilioasphodelus (daylily buds), Crambe maritima (broccolis), Crambe cordifolia (broccolis), Nettle, 2* Origanum, Tragopogon pratensis (flower stems and buds), Allium senescens, Campanula latifolia, Asparagus trichophyllus, Chives (flower buds), Peltaria alliacea, garlic, chili and chicory (2 types)
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Presenting an album of pictures from BG Vienna showing edible plants I found in the collections and talked about during my walk and talk arranged by Arche Noah!
The entrance to the garden
Hosta kikutii var pygmaea
Hosta siebodiana “Elegans”
Scorzonera austriaca in the wild garden
Water leaf or Indian salad (Hydrophyllum)
Osmorhiza occidentalis
Cryptotaenia japonica “Atropurpurea”
Apium (Helioscadium) repens is presumably edible (sometimes classified as a subspecies of Apium nodiflorum)
Bunium bulbocastaneum
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely)
Trachystemon orientalis
Peucedanum officinale is the source of a gum!
Elaeagnus angustifolia
Kalimeris incana
Gunnera tinctoria is one of the 80 in my book!
Labelled as Allium oreophilum , which it isn’t, looks like a good form of Allium senescens or hybrid!
Not this either, looks like the great Allium imposter Allium cyathophorum var farreri
Hemerocallis
Senecio cannabifolius…used as a vegetable in the Far East. I’ve lost mine, any chance of a new starter Trond Høy?
Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), a plant with a multitude of uses…many food uses, medicinal and the leaves have also been used as plates!
Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Albania’s most popular wild foraged edible!
Lilium pomponium, a lily from southern France and north Italy – the bulbs have been used for food!
Allium victorialis grows in the Alps
Meum athamaticum
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Syneleisis aconitifolia is in my Japanese foraging book!
Serratula coronata – I sowed this one for the first time…used for food in Korea..
Crithmum maritimum, death samphire, but perfectly edible!
There was a bed of 6-7 different Angelica species including this one, Angelica purpurascens
Angelica anomala
Angelica gigas
The smallest species I’ve seen, Angelica polymorpha from East Asia
Angelica amurensis
Angelica acutiloba
Angelica anomala
Aster ageratoides
Aster (Eurybia) macrophylla, a Native Americam food plant!
Aster glehnii is used in the Far East
It’s not often I see Aster scaber (see my book) in botanical gardens!
Basella alba and cousin Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine)
Talinum paniculatum
Viola alba
Siberian pea tree (Caragana) growing an producing masses of small beans in the warmth of Vienna
Ostrich fern growing well in damp soil by a stream
Xanthorrhoea (grass tree or black boy) from Australia was considered as a future crop for sugar in the 19th century
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Sedum
Parietaria, edible non-stinging nettle
Laportea canadensis, Canadian wood nettle
Urtica cannabina
Althaea officinalis, Marshmallow
Callirhoe is a great edimental in the Mallow family from North America
Cornus kousa, an edimental!!
Hibiscus trionum
There’s a good collection of edible Sanguisorba species (edible young shoots), most better than overrated S. officinalis (salad burnet). This is Sanguisorba albiflora
Sanguisorba tenuifolia var purpurea
Sanguisorba hakusanensis
Sanguisorba obtusa
Entrance to the administration building where I met the garden’s director!
Next to the entrance to the entrance to the administration building…Host’s Hostas of course!
I was given a tour of the greenhouses by Frank who was also a member of Arche Noah! This included a collection of vanilla species…
The participants of the walk and talk. Thanks to Arche Noah’s Ursula (in front) for organising my visit!
In stark contrast to the diversity of the botanical garden, this is the next door neighbour!
Did you know you could make coffee tea from the leaves of the coffee bush! I finally got round to trying the fresh leaves from my plant as a tea a couple of weeks back and it was really delicious, with a similar taste to coffee berries if you’ve tried them (the red flesh around the seed used to make coffee).
Coffee tea is certainly easier to grow and make at home than coffee coffee …. I’m still saving seed for a brew :)
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
