Most of the greens are now finished in the cellar, so time for the first harvest in the garden despite for the fact that it’s been snowing off and on over the last week and air temperatures haven’t risen much over +5C so far this year: 30 different greens plus two varieties of oca made into a diversity green pasta sauce! SO GOOD! Lucky us being able to harvest the best nutrition straight from the garden with little effort. Perennials are best! As usual, the Giant Ulleung Celery (Dystaenia takesimana) has come on furthest of my perennial vegetables! See the list of species used below the pictures.
AROUND THE WORLD IN THE EDIBLE GARDEN; Part 2 – Korea Inviting you to the second in a series of dinners from Malvik’s Edible Garden where we “forage” from different parts of the world! We don’t often eat oily food, but now and again its great and this meal was exceptional! From top left and clockwise: Ligularia fischeri Dystaenia takesimana (Giant Ulleung celery, seombadi) Aralia cordata (udo) (blanched for dipping and green for tempura) Phyteuma (should have been japonica, but I used nigra; svartvadderot) Allium victorialis subsp platyphyllum (victory onion; seiersløk) Aralia elata (devil’s walking stick, fandens spaserstokk) Hosta “Frances Williams” Hemerocallis dumortieri (flower shoots) (dayliliy, daglilje) Parasenecio hastatus (also the first time I ate this one and it was delicious, but I wouldn’t advise eating a lot: see here http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23845) Matteuccia struthiopteris “Jumbo” (ostrich fern; strutseving) Taraxacum albidum and to the right of this: New Zealand spinach and Serratula coronata (also a first for me; the subspecies insularis is eaten in the Far East) Oplopanax horridus (North American species substituting Asian species Oplopanax japonicus or Oplopanax elatus) More information with the pictures!
The closest I got to white flowered Korean dandelion, this is Taraxacum albidum from Japan.
Taraxacum albidum; large up to 7cm flowers!
Taraxacum albidum
Blanched udo (Aralia cordata)
Blanched udo (Aralia cordata)
Blanched Hosta sieboldiana “Frances Williams”
Ligularia fischeri
From top left and clockwise: Ligularia fischeri, Dystaenia takesimana, Aralia cordata (udo) (blanched for dipping and green for tempura), Phyteuma (should have been japonicum, but I used nigra), Allium victorialis, Aralia elata, Hosta “Frances Williams”, Hemerocallis dumortieri (flower shoots), Parasenecio hastatus (also the first time I ate this one and it was delicious, but I wouldn’t advise eating a lot: see here http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23845), Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), Taraxacum albidum and to the right of this: New Zealand spinach and Serratula coronata (also a first for me; the subspecies insularis is eaten in the Far East)
Peeling the blanched udo for dipping
Allium thunbergii from the Far East was used in the dipping sauce
The last group of tempurised veg!
We improvised dinner on the floor (the dining room table is my office!), the only thing missing was the Soju!
Dipping blanched Hosta! DELICIOUS!! The dipping sauce was made with 6T of soy sauce, 3T of water, 1T of apple cider vinegar, 1T of sesame oil, pepper, 1 crushed garlic clove, chili and green onions (Allium thunbergii)
Dipping blanched udo (Aralia cordata)
Last minute addition (there was enough food for two days), I remembered these Oplopanax horridus or devil’s club shoots. Although this is a North American species, there are closely related species in the Far East: Oplopanax japonicus and Oplopanax elatus
Last minute addition (Oplopanax horridus or devil’s club)
Somebody asked me the other day if I use floating mulch (fiberduk / agryl) to be able to harvest all these greens so early. No, no and again no….this is one of the biggest benefits of perennial vegetables….it is totally natural, no microplastics are released into the environment, no oil is needed to plough the fields, significantly less migrant labour is needed and little or no fertiliser and water is needed, it is almost totally free once established and can yield year after year! So, whilst large areas of farmland in the northern hemisphere are being covered by plastic mulches to bring on annual crops for the market earlier, I’d just like to point out that there’s an alternative better way! So, here are the plants that I harvested for yesterday’s delicious green pasta sauce: Armoracia rusticana shoots (horseradish / pepperrot) Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel) Houttuynia cordata “Chinese Market” (shoots and rhizomes from the cellar; this cultivar is significantly larger than other Houttuynia I’ve grown) (Fish herb, Himalayan water creeper) Allium senescens x nutans (hybrid Siberian onions) Laurus nobilis (bay / laurbær) Brassica oleracea (perennial kales) Crambe maritima (sea kale / strandkål) Taraxacum officinale (dandelion / løvetann) Allium x proliferum (walking onion / luftløk) Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde) Dystaenia takesimana (giant Ulleung celery, seombadi) Oenanthe javanica (seri) Polymnia edulis (yacon) (second picture) plus garlic and chili
Greens (and reds) harvested from under the snow in the garden and in the cellar; Houttuynia cordata are the red shoots bottom leftYacon
In my world, plants that are both perennial, edible, ornamental and popular with pollinating insects are the most valuable (I term this class of plants edi-ento-mentals) and the Giant Ulleung Celery, Dystaenia takesimana, ticks all 3 boxes! That it can provide winter greens at a time of year when little else is available is its biggest advantage as an edible plant! This plant has been a closely guarded secret amongst a selected few for many years, but is now poised for the big(ger) time! The fact that I’ve written the article below about this plant is thanks to one man, plant breeder Professor Elwyn Meader (1910-1996) who collected seed on its small home island of Ulleung-do in the East Sea between the Korean peninsular and Japan in 1953! Without his generosity and enthusiasm 30 or so years ago to share seeds, we wouldn’t know about one of the potentially most useful permaculture plants! Please download the article below and seek out plants and seed!
The photo below of a flowering Giant Ulleung Celery at Eric Toensmeier’s home Paradise Lot in Holyoke, Massachusetts is courtesy of Jonathan Bates, who’s in the picture too.
The first winter shoots were harvested from the cellar today. It is almost totally dark in the cellar and currently about +6C. The blanched shoots in the picture are (from L to R) dandelions (løvetann), perennial kales (flerårige kål) and catalogna chicory (sikkori). Otherwise you can see Korean celery (Dystaenia takesimana), perennial celery / fool’s watercress (Apium nodiflorum), turnip (nepe) , carrot (gulrot) and lemon balm (sitronmelisse).
The salad was decorated with Begonia flowers from the living room!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
