On my way up north from Edinburgh by train I stopped off to visit Scottish Rockers ( Scottish Rock Garden Forum luminaries) Ian and Maggi Young’s wonderfully diverse garden in Aberdeen. Ian was actually the first person to review my book and I blogged about the review and Ian’s labour of love since 2003, his weekly Bulb Log here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=269
Maggi is the intrepid commander-in-chief of the Scottish Rock Garden Forum and other FB fora for many years, a forum I used to follow daily until FB took over as there’s an enormous amount of information and knowledge there, and perhaps 30% or so of ornamentals are edible!
Ian kindly volunteered to pick me up at the station and I spent a pleasant hour or two looking through their paradise. Although it wasn’t the best time of year to see the garden there were still a number of plants in flower and it was good to also meet Allium wallichii here too (see my blog about the Edinburgh botanics)…and this week’s Bulb Log from Ian features a great shot of this plant on the front page: http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2016Sep141473851515BULB_LOG_3716.pdf Now to plan a spring visit!
I was surprised to see two Gunneras (both tinctoria/chilensis and manicata) outside at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim at the weekend. Reidun Mork told me that they had used the same overwintering technique as they used at the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens, where she used to work. I knew exactly what she meant as I’d taking a picture in Copenhagen of this in early May (second picture). I’ve never seen overwintered Gunnera so far north before. Gunnera tinctoria is one of the 80 in my book and has special significance locally as the genus was named after Trondheim Bishop Gunnerus (by Linnaeus).
I must have a go at overwintering my pot grown specimen…
These 4 fun-loving specimens of Homo sapiens from Germany, the US, Denmark and Norway, on a secret mission, raided my garden of some giant vegetables this evening and here they are caught in the act! All may eventually be revealed…
Somebody once said that solstice greens are the best…I’d add that solstice perennial greens are even better :) Here’s what I used in tonight’s soup: Sea kale(strandkål), Scorzonera (scorsonnerot), Allium senescens, Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), Giant bellflower (storklokke), Sorrel / surblad, Nettle (nesle), Dandelion (løvetann) (all are in my book)…and I almost forgot that there’s chickweed (vassarve) in there too, perennial in that it’s there every year!
Many thanks to Sam Brown for showing me around backstage and for posing for scale next to this giant Taunton Deane’s Cottagers Kale, the UK’s only documented old surviving cultivated perennial kale! This one was acccording to Christina Damerel only about 5-6 years old. I was bowled over to see the cottagers kales when I visited 5 years ago, but hadn’t realised how big they could get. The pictures in the link above show plants that weren’t actually that old… The plant in the picture below has a similar stature to the Californian Tree Collards. Sam told me that the woodpigeons graze the higher leaves (you can see this in the picture), but the lower ones are left alone and are also better tasting. The “trunk” was massive!
More pictures from this still great edible walled garden when I get a chance!
Well, not only Mandy’s plot, a group of local people in Ashburton, Devon got together to buy The Field a few years ago to grow vegetables communally! It is truly an inspiration to see how productive what was sheep pasture can actually be!! We need much more of this and I’m imagining the hills around covered in Andean tuber crops in a few years from now rather than sheep!!
It was great to meet you all and a big bonus that Owen and good lady made the journey up from Cornwall to join us!!
More pictures in the album below!
See Mandy’s blog of my visit here: http://www.incrediblevegetables.co.uk/stephen-barstow-visit/
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden