Thanks very much to Joan Lambert Bailey for the nice remarks and great review! Yes, you’re absolutely right when you say “I am convinced this book is his way of sharing the fun” :) :) :)
http://www.japanfarmersmarkets.com/2015/01/my-review-of-around-world-in-80-plants.html
Must check out your blog….never been to Japan and had planned to make the trip this spring but it wasn’t to be, highest on my places to visit….next spring :)
SEE THE NEW SEED LIST
Welcome to my new seed trade list for 2014-15.
12, 13 and 14 in brackets indicates the harvesting year for the seed. Concerning seed quantity: as I don’t have many plants of each species, seed quantity is limited in most cases. Therefore, for some species you may only get a few seeds. Many species are harvested in my garden. Others are surplus from trade and purchase. OUT: Means out of stock.
Sometimes I sell surplus seed (if time allows), although Continue reading The new Edimentals seed trade list for 2014-2015
An Interview with the Extreme Salad Man Stephen Barstow at www.Shoreditchradio.co.uk on Sunday 18 January at 20:00 UTC
This is an interview I did in London with London Permaculture’s Stefan Geyer when I was in the UK on 12th December!
If you miss the broadcast, you can listen at your leisure by going to www.21stCenturyPermaculture.com
14 years ago and my seed list had some 1,000 entries and I even added a usage code (from Plants for a Future)………
Edible and Useful Plant Seed Trade List
for November 2000 to October 2001
About the Garden: Most of the seed offered is collected in my own garden here on the edge of the Trondheimsfjord at close to
64 deg. N an area of extreme climatic variability. The grass can be green on 1st January and snow might lie for a short while on
1st June. We talk about having two seasons – the green and the white winter. It is, however, surprisingly mild for the latitude. A
remarkable number of species survive the winter (or should I say summer) and seem to thrive. However, a number of the plants
are grown in pots and are moved in to a cold cellar (temperature just above zero in mid-winter) in the winter without extra
warmth.
The garden is one of a network of organically run gardens in Norway and can be visited by agreement. We are just at the end of
our 17th season here. We use no input apart from compost, an important ingredient of which is seaweed which we collect every
spring.. We grow a wide range of vegetables many of which are not commonly grown here (e.g., Runner Beans, Broad Beans, Continue reading From the vaults: my Edible and Useful Plant Seed Trade List from 2000!
I like the comment by Eve Emshwiller in the interesting article http://whyfiles.org/2012/farming-native-american-style looking at how to learn from how the Native Americans had developed stable, sophisticated food-gathering systems:
“There were a lot of people who were not considered agriculturalists, who were [supposedly] just gathering from the wild. But if you really understand what they were doing, there is not a sharp line between gathering and farming. There is a huge continuum of ways that people manage resources and get more from them.” This is a message that I try to get across in my book where many examples are given of this continuum between foraging and gardening.
I grow a couple of the wild gathered tubers mentioned in the article. First, Riceroot is a really hardy edimental and an important foraged food plant across its range (the first group of pictures below). The last three pictures are of Hog peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata).
The first time I made a megasalad in 2001 with 363 different plants (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=206) I approached Guinness to claim a world record. They were not interested and I accidentally found the rejection email today (from 10th October 2001). Their reply: “Unfortunately, we would not be interested in a record for the most diverse salad. I recommend that you choose a salad of some particular variety and attempt the largest salad of its kind.”
After this, I was glad that I’d been refused as the Guinness Records represent greed and an inorganic product. I tried half seriously to find an organic brewery that would be interested in starting a record book of records with a sustainable message…..still looking…
I’ve eaten vegan food for Xmas for over 30 years and it’s always nut roast and a diversity of colourful tubers from all over the world!
The seeds on the nut roast are “bulbils” of Alpine Bistort (Polygonum viviparum) (more in the book!)
Hablitzia (the Caucasian Spinach) and Digitalis purpurea (Common Foxglove) are both shade tolerant perennials one an edible and the other an important medicinal, so not unlikely that they would meet as in these lovely pictures captured by my old friend Robin ALLAN whose name I spelled wrongly in the book’s acknowledgements, confusing with my cousins who are ALLENs.
SORRY SORRY SORRY….
There are 8 pages in my book devoted to this, one of my all time favourite perennial vegetables, Hablitzia tamnoides. I prefer just to call it Hablitzia or Habby as my friend Telsing calls it fondly, but sometimes it is known as the Caucasian spinach revealing its home territory. I’m particularly in awe of its hardiness as shoots appear in autumn and are usually undamaged after being exposed to up to 3 months of freezing temperatures. Even if the shoots were killed off, there are numerous shoots waiting at the ready to sprout from the roots! Even on the 31st December, the snow having disappeared for some days, I could now harvest a few shoots for a winter salad! I did this last Xmas which was very mild – the reddish shoots at the bottom in the 50 species salad picture are Hablitzia. The pictures of my oldest Hablitzia root mound below were taken today, 31st December 2014….
I also noticed like last year that several seeds have already sprouted around the plant, eager to get started with spring. Last year they all died in our winter drought…. I’ll leave them and see if they make it… :)
Most of the snow disappeared in the garden after rain and high temperatures over the last 24 hours…revealing this old man’s beard in seed. I’ve grown Clematis vitalba as a spring edible (cooked young shoots) for a number of years, but after a long mild summer and autumn this is the first time the seed has matured and the beard has emerged…this is a good one for the Forest Garden, but remember that it needs to be cooked as poisonous raw like most members of the Buttercup family, Ranunculaceae…
Clematis vitalba is an important wild foraged edible particularly in Italy!
