Some pictures of RHS Wisley’s National Rhubarb collection in mid-April 2009. It comprised some 151 plants including a few “ornamental” rhubarbs as well as species.
You will find more about using rhubarb as a perennial vegetable in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
In early October 2011, I was on a work trip in Ireland (Cork) and stopped off to see the city’s botanical garden for the first time! Here’s a series of pictures of unusual fruit bushes and trees taken on my recent visit to the National Botanical Garden in Dublin. I’d never seen such a good collection of Berberis before – impressive diversity…
Poncirus trifoliata, Hardy Orange/ Dversitron – never seen a bush quite this large. It wasn’t hardy enough for my garden and I lost mine after it sulked for 3 years
Quercus mongolica (Mongolian oak or the Shandong silk oak)! Did you know that the Chinese not only produce silk from mulberry trees, but also from Mongolian oak trees? The Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, is the worker employed according to Food Plants of China! See https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/10/1/180/887115
The Mongolian oak nuts were also sometimes eaten and the leaves were used for tea, boiled with the fruits of Siberian crabapple, Malus baccata!
I sorted my stored apples yesterday and put out ones that had begun to rot for the waxwings and thrushes outside the kitchen window. This was the scene this morning!
Thanks to Matthias Brück for preparing cactus pads (nopalitos) from Opuntia ficus-indicus for lunch, a long job by hand to de-spine first, but delicious! Does the old variety developed by Luther Burbank, “Burbank’s Spineless” still exist?
…and the prickly pear /Indian fig fruits too, together with old pear and apple varieties and banana from Madeira! Thanks to Nuno Roxo!
On Sunday I finally found the opportunity to visit my friend and fellow Norwegian Seed Savers (KVANN) board member Andrew McMillion who lives on a small farm in Nes, Akershus! We were joined by Amandine from France who is doing an Msc in Agroecology in Ås (Norway). She had joined us in Trondheim and Malvik at the KVANN weekend in June!
In Andrew’s tunnel greenhouse I saw several plants I’d never seen before and Andrew’s belief in the importance of diversity in a secure food production is evident everywhere! His greenhouse reminded me in fact of Alan Kapuler (Mushroom)’s amazing kinship (biodiversity) gardens in Oregon, USA (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3325)
It’s amazing how Andrew grows what for many are impossible vegetables with minimal additional heat!
Outside, he is developing the ravine on the side of the property with perennial vegetables! He is also a champion of Shetland Cabbage as a future hardy vegetable in Norway and this is one of many vegetables he offers each year through Norwegian Seed Savers!!
I look forward to following Andrew’s projects over the next years!!
Udo (Aralia cordata)
Atomic Red carrots being grown for the Norwegian seed company, Solhatt
Atomic Red carrots being grown for the Norwegian seed company, Solhatt
One of Alan Kapuler’s tomatoes…very distinctive…I saw his breeding lines on my visit there, but was asked not to publish pictures (here’s an album of pictures from my visit with Kapuler)
Diversity
Watermelon
Amaranths
Melon
Udo (Aralia cordata)
Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Chinese liquorice
German hardneck garlic with massive bulbs!
Papaw (Asimina)
Ligularia fischeri and udo (Aralia cordata)
Bhutanese? melon!
Bhutanese? melon! It looks like a cucumber when young…
Bhutanese? melon!
Peloria on bhutanese? melon
Fenugreek (methi) seed
Udo (Aralia cordata)
A Japanese variety of runner bean is the last producer
Aster scaber (Korean aster)
Andrew grows Indian ginseng / Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)
Andrew grows Indian ginseng / Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) – enough for Andrew to hibernate for the winter?
Ligularia fischeri
The biodiversity tunnel!
An area in the ravine where Andrew is planting udo (Aralia cordata) and other perennials
American chestnut
Amaranth
Amaranth diversity
Even aubergines thrive…Andrew says that varieties with small fruits are easiest in a marginal climate
Seed saving…amaranth!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
