I’ve also harvested onions of Allium stipitatum “Album”, one of the so-called Ornamental onions…but for those in the know also a fantastic Edimental onion. I bought this one as Allium rosenbachianum “Album” from Taylor’s bulbs in 2009. My friend, THE onion man,Mark McDonough tentatively ID’d it rather as Allium stipitatum “Album” – a bit disappointed as I’d just discovered a paper documenting the traditional use of the young leaves of rosenbachianum in traditional soup dishes in Tajikistan (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6578). However, stipitatum is one of at least 3 species of onion of which the bulbs are harvested, sliced and dried and sold as Persian shallots around the world. I’d earlier blogged about a second tall edimental onion I was growing; ID’d by Dutch onion grower Wietse Mellema as probably Allium altissimum (but bought as Allium hirtifolium “Album”) (see my blog A Year in the life of the Persian Shallot – http://tinyurl.com/jexyak7 and http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=893). However, Wietse commented this summer that he didn’t think it was altissimum….so still unsure what this is…
Anyway, I harvested the largest onions, replanted the smaller ones and they are now drying along with apples above my wood stove…must remember to mark them as onions when dried this year as the last time I did this somebody ate one thinking they were apples ;)
I also discovered that the roots that the bulbs had already put down in preparation of spring were tasty and crunchy…. to be used in tonight’s salad!
An early Xmas present from Alexander Naumenko! Thanks!
Several new very interesting Alliums, Taraxacum lilacinum (lilac flowered dandelion…hope they will germinate!), Hyssopus tianschanicus, Tragopogon capitatus, Angelica brevicaulis and Serratula coronata (an important wild edible food plant in the Far East that I’ve been looking for for some time; this species has a very wide geographic distribution and is in the same family as saw-wort/jærtistel, Serratula tinctoria )! Also a nice little book in Russian on the Plants of Kyrgyzstan…
Two pictures from the end of June 2014 of possibly my favourite onion, the nodding onion (Allium cernuum) from North America in some of its myriad of forms…beautiful and useful at all times of year….see more in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
I’m always struck by the beauty of this plant at all stages…the almost black seed pods which are also inky when crushed are wonderful at this time of year…
Illustrating the beauty of this plant even in fruit in early October and the large differences of different accessions of the same species..
I’m always struck by the beauty of this plant at all stages…the almost black seed pods which are also inky when crushed are wonderful at this time of year…I was struck not only by the difference in colour but also the size of the seed pods is much smaller on the accession on the right. The flowers are also quite different
Here are a few of my Allium victorialis pictures from the 2014 onion safari to the Lofoten Islands! The aim was to see the naturalised stands of viking onion / seiersløk on the island Vestvågøy, quite possibly a viking introduction…it grows commonly around the Borg viking museum (on the site of an old viking settlement)…much more in my book on this amazingly tasty, healthy, shade-tolerant and productive onion!
Reconstructed viking onion garden with Allium victorialis and Allium schoenoprasum subsp sibiricum (at the Lofotr Viking Museum at Borg)
Large patch of Allium victorialis…amazingly, when I posted this the first time, it turned out that one of my FB friends’ mother had lived in this house until last year :)Allium victorialis waiting for the ferry to Røst…purchased at Judiths Urtehage ( a small nursery)On Røst, Einar Stamnes had tipped me of a large patch of Allium victorialis in a garden, possibly 100 years old…This picture was by print screen on the train on the way to the Lofoten Islands using Google Street View….I revisited a garden where I had found an allée of Allium victorialis along the driveway :) Amazing what you can do with modern technology…Onions arriving at our final destination, Skomvær…
The document below is in Norwegian but contains many pictures from my first visit to Vestvågøy in the Lofoten Islands to see the stands of naturalised victory onion (seiersløk), Allium victorialis, including a harvesting trip with Judith van Koesveld (she and her partner Christoph produce a local pesto from the plants). The document also contains an account of a visit to Brynhild Mørkved at the botanical gardens in Tromsø to see the collection of Allium victorialis accessions from different parts of this onion’s extensive range (from the Pyrenees to Japan). Plants vary quite a lot in their form. Finally, I visited Geir Flatabø in Ulvik (Hardanger) in south west Norway and he showed me the large naturalised stand of this plant next to the Granvin river. There are also a few pictures from a collection of heritage ornamentals at the Lofotmuseet and from a visit to a once great but now derelict garden at Finneset (Steinhagen). All pictures were taken in June 2009.
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:
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!!
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).
What a lucky man I am!!!
Britt-Arnild’s picture from the kitchen
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
Cutting the taro leaf
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?
Preparing the broad beans for cooking
The red coloured variety is Karmazyn
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!!
Cooking the taro leaf
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!
Thanks to Lieven David for attracting my attention to the following interesting paper on “Wild Allium species (Alliaceae) used in folk medicine of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan” https://ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4269-2-18 I was particularly interested to read of the use of the young leaves of Allium rosenbachianum, a species commonly sold as an ornamental. I’ve been growing a white flowered form for a few years, but hadn’t come across its traditional use before!
The young fresh or dried leaves are used of A. rosenbachianum and closely related A. rosenorum for the national soup dishes ‘atolla’ and ‘oshi sioalaf’.
Strap-like leaves in spring
An orange tip butterfly on the emerging inflorescence
An orange tip butterfly on the emerging inflorescence
Emerging flowers
In full flower
Young blanched early spring leaves
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
