Tag Archives: Ulluco
Last harvest of 2017 and the most colourful!
Happy New Edimental Year
Wishing all my friends, family and all the amazing folk I’ve met live and online this year a very happy green year in which things WILL begin to change for the better for our wonderful planet earth!
However, things are not changing for the better for ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) in the bottom row in this animation as this is the last year I’m growing this wonderfully colourful root crop which I’ve been growing now since 2007 (see the comments below for the reason for this!)
The top two rows are oca (Oxalis tuberosus). Both are from the Andes and were harvested yesterday indoors (grown in large pots brought inside before the first frostsin October).
Animation by my daughter Avellana Hazel
Andes in Malvik 2008
In 2008 I still had a greenhouse. After it was destroyed in the 26th December 2011 I decided not to rebuild it and to only grow hardy vegetables. However, in 2008, I grew a number of less hardy vegetables including several from the Andes mountains. One of these was Achocha (Cyclanthera pedata), although yields of fruits wasn’t very big (I grew it for several years from 2002-2012) and I would have probably been better off eating the shoots and leaves which are also edible and pretty good! Interestingly, my Nepalese guests (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6118) told me it was commonly grown in Nepal and they not only used the small green fruits, but the top shoots and the black seeds. The latter are roasted, ground and mixed with salt, chili and perhaps lemon. The powder is also used as a flavouring in chutney!
Picture: Achocha “Fat Baby” fruits
Pictures : Various Andean vegetables in my garden on 12th July Quinoa, Yellow Finn, Ulluco#1, Shetland Blue Eye; Achocha Fat Baby, Amaranth, Russepotet, Oca, Blå Congo, Ulluco#2, Mashua
Kosmorama/ Credo diversity dinner #1





Soba stir-fried cellar vegetables
Forcing Andean root crops for winter greens
End of the year Andes in Malvik tuber harvest
As the psychedelic (colour not effect) Andean tubers Oca (Oxalis tuberosa), Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) and Achira (Canna edulis) benefit from a longer season than I can give them outside, I grow them in buckets which I bring inside and harvest around Xmas time for a colourful christmas dinner…so here’s an album of this year’s harvest!
I was very surprised by one of the best ulluco harvests here, despite the leaves being mostly frozen off before moving the pots inside and not regrowing…I don’t understand…
Indoors Oca plantation
3 Basellaceae for Xmas dinner
For Xmas dinner 2007, I made nut roast with roast vegetables including two members of the Basellaceae family (known as the Madeira vine family). It contains the following genus: Anredera, Basella, Ullucus and plantlist.org also assigns Tournonia hookeriana (previously Basella) to the same family.

I also cooked some Basella alba (malabar or ceylon spinach) greens to serve with the dinner.
Is this the only time all 3 main members of the Basellaceae have been served together? ;)