Tag Archives: Nodding onion

Living room veggies; March 2024

Somebody asked me to show how I force veggies indoors in winter, so here you have a link to a short video showing what is available at the moment! 
At this time of year, most of our leafy greens used in salads and cooking are either harvested from the forcing pots shown in the video or directly from the cold cellar under the house. Here is a mixture of perennials, biennials and annuals. Still looking for a good perennial chicory for forcing. See the list of plants shown below.
Follow the link to the video.
Witloof Festive Chicory (sikori / julesalat)
Witloof Væres Venner mix (my own selection from the community garden based on several varieties from various gene banks)
Hristo’s onion (Allium flavescens x nutans?)
Kandahar cress (karse) from the Experimental Farm Network (seed harvested in the community garden)
Wild buckwheat / vill bokhvete (seed harvested in The Edible Garden) Garlic bulbil sprouts / spirte hvitløk bulbiller
Nodding onion / prærieløk (Allium cernuum)
Dandelion / løvetann

ARTIKLER OM FLERÅRIGE GRØNNSAKER FRA HAGETIDEND 2021

I 2021 publiserte Norsk Hagetidend en serie artikler jeg hadde skrevet om 10 av mine favoritt flerårige grønnsaker til Norsk Hagetidend.  Alle artiklene kan nå bli lastet ned ved å klikke på lenkene nedenfor! 

English: In 2021, I wrote a series of two page articles about my favourite perennial vegetables for Norsk Hagetidend (the magazine of the Norwegian Horticultural Society) in Norwegian. The complete series can be found below.

The plants are (scroll down to all the articles):
February 2021  Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde (Hablitzia tamnoides)

Download (PDF, 603KB)


March 2021  Horseradish / pepperrot (Armoracia rusticana)

Download (PDF, 339KB)


April 2021 Sea kale / strandkål (Crambe maritima)

Download (PDF, 288KB)


May 2021  Nodding onion / prærieløk (Allium cernuum)

Download (PDF, 329KB)


June 2021 Udo (Aralia cordata)

Download (PDF, 246KB)


July 2021  St, Jansuien /  sankthansløk (Allium x cornutum)

Download (PDF, 248KB)


August 2021 Cherokee spinach / gjerdesolhatt (Rudbeckia laciniata)

Download (PDF, 256KB)


September 2021 Hosta / bladlilje (Hosta spp.)

Download (PDF, 250KB)


October 2021 Patience dock / hagesyre (Rumex patientia)

Download (PDF, 236KB)


November 2021 Persian shallot / persisk sjalott (Allium stipitatum)

Download (PDF, 278KB)



 

Gunnera-Chinese Yam salad

Delicious Gunnera-Chinese Yam salad with goldenberries (Barbadoslykt), Gunnera tinctoria, Dioscorea polystachya (Chinese yam) “Ichoimo”, carrot, turnip, various tomatoes, nodding onion (prærieløk), chicory (sikori), perennial kale (flerårig kål), Worcesterberries, celery, garlic, frozen Nasturtium flowers, Begonia flowers, ….

Habby Chicago Eggs

I was showing a journalist around the winter edible garden and cellar this morning and dug up some nodding (Chicago) onions (Allium cernuum) and picked a few Hablitzia shoots, so why not turn it into lunch! I sliced an oca (Oxalis tuberosa) in with the vegetables. Scambled Habby Chicago eggs is simple gourmet midwinter food from garden to table in no time!

March soba greens

Today it reached an unusually warm 16C here which encouraged the first bumble bees and honey bees out! The picture shows the greens (and whites) used in tonight’s soba (buckwheat noodle) stir-fry:
Hogweed (Heracleum spp.) shoots (far left, from the cellar); top row: Dystaenia takesimana (outside), chicons (chicory shoots; cellar), horseradish shoots (cellar), garlic and Allium scorodoprasum shoots (outside), Allium cernuum shoots (outside); Below from L to R: Dandelion (Taraxacum) shoots from the cellar, ground elder (Aegopodium podograria) shoots (outside), lesser celandine (Ficaria verna), wild buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) seed sprouts (living room), nettle shoots (Urtica dioica), hedge mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and (bottom right) Hablitzia tamnoides shoots. 

Harvesting midwinter nodding onions

Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk) is hardy more or less anywhere people live and stays green all winter here. It’s been mild with snow coming and going for several weeks and there’s no frost in the soil. I dug up a clump yesterday to use in the kitchen and replanted a few. Some were used in a salad and others will be used in any dishes with onion in the next couple of weeks (Indian, Chinese, Mediterranean pasta with green sauce….anything really).

25th March Veggies

These delicious fresh perennial vegetables were added tonight’s dal towards the end
Aegopodium podograria (ground elder; skvallerkål)
Allium cernuum (nodding onion; prærieløk)
Brassica oleracea (perennial kale; flerårige kål)
Ficaria verna (lesser celandine; vårkål)
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard; løkurt)
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach; stjernemelde)
Taraxacum officinale ( dandelion; løvetann)  Forced and blanched in the cellar with flower buds now forming
Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely; spansk kjørvel)

The perennial bed onions

A little video showing various Alliums about to burst into flower on a bed I’ve always called the Perennial Bed as it was the first bed devoted to perennials. It’s in the shade most of the day.
0-11 secs: Various forms of Allium cernuum (Chicago onion, nodding onion / prærieløk) and broad-leaved Allium wallichii (Sherpa onion)
11-20: Allium cernuum, Hemerocallis (daylily/daglilje) and Clinopodium vulgare (wild basil)
31: Norrland Onion / Norrlandsløk
(all of the onions above are in my book)
38: Allium cyathophorum v. farreri (Farrer’s onion)

Noxious pizza

I’m still alive and well after last night’s noxious pizza. I’ll explain. I used pea shoots from the living room, onion, Allium cernuum shoots harvested from the garden (I forgot to include Hablitzia shoots), garlic and chili…on top of the pizza, I added seed of Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera), one of the “worst” noxious (invasive) species…

Burdock flower stalk curry

This album was first published on FB in June 2012, now “regurgitated” here:
“What for dinner? “Burdock flower stalk, nettle and the onion that nods curry” sounds interesting, so why not. So it was to be… I had completely missed this amazing vegetable and this experiment was prompted by foraging author Leda Meredith waxing eloquent about it a few days ago, so thanks to her. How did I miss it? Well, Cornucopia II doesn’t mention this part being eaten, just the leaf stalks – I’d tried them and they were fiddly to peel and bitter. The flower stalks were easy to prepare and once peeled had an excellent sweet crunchy taste with no bitterness.”
(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151007155680860.476401.655215859&type=1&l=b287a87f09)