The Wild Plants Lady meets the Extreme Salad Man to discuss ready salted vegetables on the Magoito Cliffs north of Lisbon!
A) Crithmum maritimum (rock samphire or death samphire; perrexil-do-mar); this is the first plant in my book and was my first plant in my talk at Ecoaldeias Janas the day before
B) Helichrysum stoechas (Portuguese curry plant; perpétuas-das-areias)
C) Beta vulgaris ssp maritima (sea beet; acelga-brava)
D) Plantago coronopus (buck’s-horn plantain, minutina or erba stella; diabelha)
Thank you so much for showing me the vegetable gardens of the sea cliffs of your home village, Fernanda Botelho :)
Thanks to Jorge Carona for filming and driving :)
With Ana Marques!
The first slide in my talk at Ecoaldeias Janas was this one about Death Samphire! More people have probably died harvesting this than any other vegetable! Fernanda asked me if I’d brought my rope!!
Having completed my course at Naturplanteskolen and guided walk at Grennessminde in August 2016, I was “rewarded” by being taken on a botanical excursion to the island Langeland. These pictures were taken at the north tip of the island which had a luxurious seaweed fertilised vegetation of some familiar perennial vegetables! Thanks to Aiah Noack of Naturplanteskolen :)
Where is Langeland?
The self-fertilising vegetable garden beach where these pictures are from is right at the far north end of Langeland
Perennial Beta maritima, sea beet, the ancestor of all the modern vegetables in the beetroot family from beetroot to swiss chard to mangelwurzel to sugar beet
Wild carrot, Daucus carota
Sea beet leaves
Sonchus, sow thistle
Seed heads of sea beet over sea kale, Crambe maritima
Crambe maritima, sea kale
Honckenya peploides, sea sandwort, is one of my favourite beach edibles
Rosa rugosa, one of the best roses for rose hips in front of sea kale and sea beet!
White-flowered Rosa rugosa
White-flowered Rosa rugosa
Suaeda maritima, sea blite
View from Langeland towards Storebæltsbroen, the bridge that links the Danish islands of Fyn and Sjælland
Dittander or broad-leaved pepperweed, Lepidium latifolium is a delicious vegetable – young shoots, flowers, seeds and roots, similar to horseradish
Sea rocket, Cakile
Wild chicory, Cichorium intybus
Wild chicory, Cichorium intybus and corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas, both edible
Wild carrot (Daucus carota) rosette
Wild carrot (Daucus carota) has white roots
Stachys
A patch of Jerusalem Artichoke on the edge of a field next to the beach
Perennial Beta maritima, sea beet,
Silverberry, Elaeagnus commutata, colonising a sandy cliff face…thanks to its nitrogen fixing ability
Silverberry, Elaeagnus commutata
Storebæltsbroen, the bridge that links the Danish islands of Fyn and Sjælland
A single plant of Angelica archangelica!
Lepidum latifolium….the roots can be used like horseradish
Lepidum latifolium….the roots can be used like horseradish
Here are scans of two articles I wrote published in 2004 (in Norwegian) in Våre Nyttevekster. The first one is about great edible salt tolerant plants (halophytes) such as Tripolium vulgare (syn. Aster tripolium), Sea kale (Crambe maritima) and Beta maritima (sea beet), articles that were later expanded in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
For various reasons large areas of conventional agricultural land around the world are becoming too salty to grow conventional crops due to intensive cultivation with irrigation leading to salt build up in the soil. In places like the Netherlands coastal agricultural land is impacted by salt water from the sea. One can either try to breed increased resistence to salt in conventional crops or develop non-conventional crops based on wild species that naturally tolerate high levels of salt, so-called halophytes.
