With record temperatures recorded in this area at the moment after a mild winter when all the cold spells coincided with good snow cover means that the soil was hardly frozen all winter and garlic shoots had appeared a few days ago at least two weeks earlier than I’ve recorded before and I also found the first ground elder (skvallerkål) shoots – welcome back my friend and, be warned, I will be eating you until the autumn! It’s the marbled purple stripe garlic varieties that I grow that appear first: Aleksandra, Estonian Red, German Hardneck and Valdres!
The harbinger of the season of plenty: ground elder (skvallerkål), I LOVE YOU!I noticed Aleksandra garlic shoots on 13th March!This is a group of two year old garlic which were started from bulbilsGarlic being grown on an two year cycle can potentially give bigger total yield than if harvested every year. In the second year as shown here each clove has germinated and will produce a clump of garlics by autumn!
This bucket was planted in the autumn and stored until now in the cellar. Within a few days of bringing it up into my living room there are usable shoots. Garlic bulbil shoots are seen behind. Nowadays, I LOVE the taste of dandelion although in my youth I found it so bitter that I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to eat it. I think the reason is a combination of giving up eating sugar and getting accustomed to eating bitter plants. In addition, nobody ate a dandelion salad alone. The following box from my book describes various methods og de-bitterizing dandelions if you want to benefit from one of the most nutritious and valuable plants on the planet but find the taste too bitter:
A collection of pictures of greens now available in my house (15th February 2016), mainly shoots of perennial vegetables!
Garlic bulbil (hvitløk-toppløk) shoots – I eat garlic bulbil shoots for most of the winter, Bulbils (topsets) form instead of flowers on hardneck garlic and are ideal for winter forcing indoors. I’m clipping them every day now to go with my lunch. The sprouts in the bucket on the left have been clipped down twice already and will try one more time before giving up. The bulbils were planted in the bucket on the right about two weeks ago.
Seed sprouts from an oriental brassica that produced masses of seed…
Madeira vine, Anredera cordifolia, is mainly known as a marginal root crop that’s not to everybody’s taste. It’s in the Basellaceae, related to both Basella (Ceylon spinach) and Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus). All have edible shoots and greens. I had lots of small tubers last autumn, so why not use them for winter sprouts!
Madeira vine, Anredera cordifolia
This is Japanese chives (japan-gressløk), received as Allium schoenoprasum var yezomonticola years ago, now apparently a synonym of Allium maximowiczii
This is Japanese chives (japan-gressløk), received as Allium schoenoprasum var yezomonticola years ago, now apparently a synonym of Allium maximowiczii, which is closely related to chives. It’s a more robust and productive plant than most chives. I replanted my oldest clump this autumn and had lots left over, so why not force them inside for winter onions! I’ll use this one again!
This is Japanese chives (japan-gressløk), received as Allium schoenoprasum var yezomonticola years ago, now apparently a synonym of Allium maximowiczii, which is closely related to chives. It’s a more robust and productive plant than most chives. I replanted my oldest clump this autumn and had lots left over, so why not force them inside for winter onions! I’ll use this one again!
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) can also be winter forced for the greens!
Allium cernuum (Nodding onion / prærieløk) dug in the autumn and now providing winter onions from the living room….
Egyptian/ walkabout /topset onion (luftløk) aerial onions can be sprouted indoors for winter greens
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
