Tag Archives: pepperrot

Magazine article

ARTIKLER OM FLERÅRIGE GRØNNSAKER FRA HAGETIDEND 2021

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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)



 

Food

March soba greens

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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. 

Perennial vegetables, Winter vegetables

Forced March Perennial Greens

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In order to lengthen the season for harvesting of perennial vegetables, I dig up roots of a selection in the autumn and plant them in garden soil in large buckets (which I have a surplus of through my Allium project, now moved to the botanical gardens). As I explain in the video, all of these can be stored outside exposed to the cold as they are very hardy (minimum about -20C here), but some get a head start by moving into my cold cellar where they start growing slowly in the dark. Welcome to my living room:

These were the forced veggies used one day last week, from top left and across – Heracleum sibiricum (hogweed / bjørnekjeks); Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke); Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely / spansk kjørvel);  Taraxacum officinale (dandelion / løvetann); (bottom row): Allium angulosum; Ficaria verna (lesser celandine / vårkål); Allium flavescens and Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / pepperrot); (centre right): wild buckwheat / vill bokhvete shoots – Fagopyrum tataricum)

Root crops

Horseradish harvest

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Although perfectly hardy, once it gets colder I won’t be able to harvest the roots, so today I harvested the winter’s supply of horseradish, and at teh same time limiting the spread of my plant. Some roots were planted in soil with the green shoots cut back.  These will be forced in the dark for the delicious shoots later in the winter. The other roots will be stored in the cellar in damp leaves until I need them for making grated horseradish and/or horseradish sauce, Austrian apfelkren (grated with steamed apples) or grated cooked beetroot…or homemade wasabi sauce.

This one tried to run away…but I caught it!

Root crops

Grated Turkish Rocket

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Turkish rocket (Bunias orientalis) is a major invasive in Southern Norway. It is believed that it was spread to Europe in a big way in horse forage that followed the Russian army that was victorious over Napoleon in 1814, reaching France. However, this species was being grown in the Chelsea Physic Garden in London as early as the 1730s.
Thanks to the Thai community in Oslo who discovered this great free to forage edible in Oslo, it has become better known as a summer vegetable in Norway – the best part is the flowering stems and “broccolis” which are milder than the rather strong tasting spring leaves.
However, the roots can be dug this time of year to make grated rocket using a similar method to that used for horseradish! Why not give it a go and help control the plant!
The ones I used were a bit fibrous, but the taste was excellent!

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Food, Perennial vegetables

9th April veggies

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Tonight’s garden foraged perennial veggies for an oriental stir-fry!

Lots of Hablitzia (stjernemelde), ground elder (skvallerkål), Svenskelauk (a form of Allium fistulosum), sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), dandelion (løvetann), day lily shoots (daglilje), blanched horseradish shoots (pepperrot) and a variety of Allium victorialis (victory onion, seiersløk) which is the earliest form I grow along with one from the Kola peninsular in northern Russia; other varieties have hardly grown yet!

Root crops, Winter shoots

Long Horseradish root

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We’re nearing the end of a very mild period with no frost in the ground, so I’ve been doing a lot of unseasonal work in the garden. Yesterday, I dug over the horseradish (pepperot) bed and excavated this one root that was trying to escape into a neighbouring area as carefully as I could!
I cut off the top with a bit of root for forcing the delicious young shoots and the root will be ground!

Book, Perennial vegetables, Plant Heritage, Talks

Visit to Bioforsk Landvik in 2012

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Norwegian:  I september 2012 besøkte jeg Grimstad for å snakke om min  bok Around the World in 80 plants som snart skulle se dagens lys! Jeg holdt et foredrag for Grimstad bys museum og Aust-Agder sopp- og nyttevekstforening. Jeg ble også invitert til Bioforsk Landvik hvor Åsmund Asdal fra  genressursenteret hadde et kontor. Jeg hadde samarbeidet med Åsmund over flere år som leder av Planteklubben for Grønnsaker (Norwegian Seed Savers). Jeg ga en kort foredrag for staben etterfulgt av en tur på forsøksarealene for å se førstehånd flere av klonsamlingene som Planteklubben mottok materiale fra hvert år!

English: In September 2012, I visited Grimstad in the south of Norway to give a talk about my soon to be published  book Around the World in 80 plants to Grimstad bys museer and  Aust-Agder sopp- og nyttevekstforening (the museum and local group of the Norwegian Useful Plants Society).  I was also invited to nearby Bioforsk Landvik where Åsmund Asdal of the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre had an office.  I had collaborated with Åsmund over a number of years as leader of Norwegian Seed Savers (Planteklubben for Grønnsaker). I gave a short afternoon talk to the staff followed by a tour of the grounds to see first hand several of the clonal collections that Planteklubben received material from each year!

 

Blanching, Perennial vegetable shoots, Perennial vegetables, Root crops

The last roots

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The last roots I harvest in the autumn are perennial vegetables for eating in the winter. I usually do this as late as possible and some years harvestng involves breaking through the ice with a pick axe! With daytime temperatures of -7C forecast for next week, this may be the last chance! Yesterday was the annual horserdish (pepperrot) harvest….the big roots are for forcing young shoots as a vegetable (usually blanched) and the younger roots for grated horseradish! An annual dig also serves to limit the spread of horseradish which can be a problem in some gardens!
See my webinar from last winter on winter vegetables here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf1ucsGrU2U