Black flowered broad bean
This beautiful black flowered broad bean (fava) / bondebønne appeared in my garden in 2011. I isolated the seed, but sadly lost it and nothing like this has appeared again!
Bulbils on my Horseradish?
Autumn spring habby
Stampede=Dayneutral=Dwarf Sunray=Bianca
Stampede is a North American Jerusalem Artichoke variety , the name alluding to the fact that it is fast growing . Here’s the description in Cornucopia II.
I first grew a variety called Dagnøytral (Dayneutral) which was long recognised as the best variety here in Norway as, unlike other varieties, it produces good yields in our long days (hence the name). I was later given a variety from Sweden called Bianca (Bianka). introduced to Scandinavia from Russia in the 1970s by a well known Swedish veggie gardener here called Ake Truedsson. They were for me identical, flowering at the same time and morphologically difficult to tell apart, both with knobbly tubers. Next I got Dwarf Sunray from Danish Seed Savers (in 2004) and that also developed to an identical plant :)
Reading the description of Stampede in Cornucopia II (picture), I began to wonder if all originated from / were identical to that Native American variety, so I asked on the Homegrown Goodness forum if anyone could send me a tuber. In December 2008 I received 3 tubers from Bunkie Weir in the US and, guess what, the flower buds of the Russian, Canadian and Norwegian plants emerged in perfect synchronicity!
According to Truedsson, Bianka is a widespread variety in Russia, perhaps taken there by Vavilov? Not surprising really that such a superior variety (yieldwise at least) should have spread around the world!
Midnight view of the fjord, Malvikodden and Stjørdal
Greenfinches on burdock
Berries 17th October 2015
Around the world in 80 plants shopping list
Waning crescent moon
This morning at 7 am