Category Archives: Tubers

Yacon at 63.5N

October 8, 2016 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

This is the closest I’ve got Yacon to flowering here, grown in a large container…it might just make it as warmer nights and sunny days are forecast for the next week…

Beans, Climbers, Tubers

Yam beans

September 28, 2016 Stephen Barstow 1 Comment

For the first time this year I have two different Yam beans growing in my office in Trondheim, Ahipa and Jicama (Pachyrhizus ahipa og Pachyrhizus erosus) . I’ve grown and eaten Jicama before and here’s an album of pictures about my experiences of this delicious vegetable…worth growing for a little taste each year!

On the left, Ahipa (Pachyrhizus ahipa; Andean yam bean) and Jicama (P. erosus, Yam bean) in my office; September 2016… I hadn’t realised that Ahipa doesn’t climb, hence the stakes on both plants…the yellow things are models of my company, OCEANOR’s marine environmental monitoring buoys that I tested in a wave tank back in the 80s!

The first time I grew Jicama was in 2008. The yield wasn’t fantastic, but enough to try, here with tomatillos

Quinoa boiled and then stir-fried with chili, tomatoes and onion.

Home grown Norwegian tomatillos ready to cook ;)

Cooked tomatillos with other salsa ingredients!

The final dinner, grated Jicama with lemon bottom left was one of the tastiest vegetables I’ve eaten, salsa (bottom right) and quinoa (top)

My daughter painted a Jicama tuber… I’ve always liked this :)

September 2014 and I was visiting a friend in Woodstock, Vermont and we found Jicamas in the local food coop!

This Woodstock edimental jicama salad was delicious (with foraged greens and flowers)

Edible flowers, Edimentals, Onions, Tubers

Nepalese feast in Malvik

September 2, 2016 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

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!

Sharmila about to prepare fresh Jimmu for the very first time. Living in the lowlands, they can only get it dried…

Sharmila gets acquainted with the Nepalese onion in Malvik…still a bit in disbelief that this is really happening!

Another plant my new friends recognised was taro (karkalo) or Colocasia esculenta. I’ve grown this as a pot plant for several years for a couple of tubers a year, inside in winter and outside for most of the summer. Even in our cold climate it grows outside in summer! However, I’d never used the leaves as I thought one had to use special low-oxalate varieties (oxalate in the leaves can scratch your throat). They assured me I could eat it!

Sharmila can’t get karkalo leaf in Trondheim and , so it was amazing for them to meet someone up in the north actually growing it! They will now grow it themselves!

Meanwhile, Britt-Arnhild and helper made the salad (NB! Salads aren’t very common in Nepal, perhaps cooking to sterilise).

A quick fry of the Jimmu (Allium wallichii) before adding to the black lentils/dal..

The karkalo leaf stems were first split lengthwise

The taro leaf was rolled up before cooking…Sharmila and Kamal had different ways of doing this from their different villages.

A Nepalese spice colelction including cumin and fenugreek

The next generation of edimental salad makers! She decorated it herself!!

“We use the broad bean pods too” Kamal told me!!! What? Really? Isn’t it very fibrous?

The Nepalese pressure cooker was frequently used!

Ghee (clarified butter) is important in Nepalese cooking as it is in India. They sometimes make their own, but this was bought..

Kamal showing one of the spices used…Zanthoxylum armatum, a new species for my life list!!

WOW, are you jealous? The Allium wallichii flowers was a last minute finishing touch…I sacrificed my only dark flowered Jimmu for this picture! The broad beans were a bit fibrous but very tasty…. I will certainly be using the pods of broad beans in future. As Kamal said ” what’s a bit of fibre…it’s good for us!”

Nepal in Malvik edimentalised with the flowers of two varieties of Allium wallichii from high elevations in Nepal, but feeling quite at home in the lowlands of Malvik! The cooked taro was delicious and I will have to start growing more pots of taro as it makes an excellent winter house plant green! I couldn’t sense any silicates in my throat either!

Breeding, Forest Gardening, Nursery, Perennials, Root crops, Salad, topset onion, Tubers, walkabout onion

Mandy Barber’s Incredible Vegetables and The Field

June 12, 2016 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

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/

Tubers

Wild Ulluco

February 15, 2016 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

Ulluco is a colourful root vegetable from the Andes. The tubers are quite small….wild Ulluco tubers (Ullucus tuberosus) which I received today (just for fun!) are even smaller (they do get bigger than these though!)! Two of these originate in Peru (1040 to 1300m), the other from Bolivia.

Two Ulluco cultivars grown in Malvik for Xmas dinner:

Tubers

Spring shoots in December

December 20, 2015 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

P1510257 — Claytonia virginiana, Spring Beauty

P1510259 — Clusters of unopened flowers of Claytonia virginiana, Spring Beauty

P1510260 — Large tuber under Claytonia virginiana, Spring Beauty

It’s normal that Hablitzia tamnoides and various Alliums have young shoots at this time of year, but I’d never seen shoots and clusters of flower buds on Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginiana) and Angelica atropurpurea before in December…

Breeding, Tubers

3rd year Paolo JA crosses

December 20, 2015 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

This is the 3rd year of growing Paolo Gaiardelli‘s first year Dayneutral x wild Italian crosses – harvested today! I’ve selected 5 interesting looking tubers to grow for a 4th year before deciding whether to keep them!

Here’s a Norwegian article about the project: http://www.skogoglandskap.no/nyheter/2013/krysninger_mellom_vill_italiensk_og_norsk_jordskokk/newsitem

Dandelions, Leafy greens, Onions, Perennials, Tempura, Tubers

Perennial vegetable tempura

September 17, 2015 Stephen Barstow 1 Comment

April 2014 and Yngvil (aka Ms. Saladdy) was helping out in my garden, her practical experience for her education to become a gardener! I’ll let her tell her own story of the wonderful diverse tempura we made together on that day using perennial veggies!

..includes ostrich fern, blanched lovage, Udo, perennial kale, moss-leaved dandelion, Allium victorialis, nettles, Aster scaber, scorzonera shoots, Campanula latifolia, Oca, Myrrhis, Allium scorodoprasum, garlic, Allium ursinum, Ligularia fischeri (first time), sea kale, Primula veris “Red Strain”, Rumex acetosa, Alliaria petiolata and a few others…

Perennials, Tubers

More edible companions

August 16, 2015 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

Hosta sieboldiana “Mira” (the leaves are wavy edged) and an unknown Lilium

P1450300

Edimentals !