Over the last couple of years I’ve been trialling celtuce in the community garden (also known as stem or asparagus lettuce / stilksalat). I’ve decided that this is a vegetable well worth growing for preparation as a salad or in various cooked dishes. This is a vegetable developed from the same species as lettuces (Lactuca sativa, var. angustana) but bred for the thickened flowering stem rather than the leaves and harvested up to flowers appearing. Peeling away the outer layer the “flesh” is free from coarse fibers with a crispy texture when eaten raw and is also mild tasting. The cluster of leaves at the top of the stem can also be used if harvested early enough. During a visit from Rick Akerboom of Elleville Planter (see https://www.ellevillevekster.no), who gave me seed of one of the 4 varieties I grew this summer, he prepared a simple but delicious salad from the diced stem with a dressing of olive oil, soy sauce and roasted sesame seeds (the same way we prepare perennial udo (Aralia cordata) shoots in spring and similar in texture too! 
Celtuce is also known as Chinese lettuce as this Mediterranean species apparently originated from the borders of Tibet and is still popular in China (known as woju or wosun). Get inspired by these delicious looking dishes from Chinese web pages:
https://tinyurl.com/28dp3m2zis
What really convinced me that this was a useful vegetable was the fact that I was also able to harvest seed this summer. Being able to grow my own seed is most important for me. This is unlike ordinary lettuce which is difficult to be self-sufficient in seed with, as varieties that bolt (go to seed) are less useful as a salad crop. Some varieties produce a lot of leaf but go to seed so late that seed do not mature but others bolt early in our long days and produce little crop. I’ve yet to find a variety that balances these two traits. Celtuce on the other hand has been selected to bolt as it’s the flower stem that is the main product.
I had four varieties this summer – Celtuce from Chiltern Seeds, Celtuce from Holland (Rick A), Asparagus Lettuce from the Organic Gardening Catalogue and Chinese Keule (sold by Norwegian Company Solhatt). It was interesting that Chinese Keule had thicker and lower stems and was available earlier than the others.
Celtuce probably arrived in Europe around 1900 and is mentioned in Vilmorin’s The Vegetable Garden from 1920 (picture) alongside perennial relative Lactuca perennis which I’m also trialling this year.
Next year I plan to obtain more varieties from gene banks and commercial sources and do a larger trial.
Category Archives: Annuals
World Garden November Salad
14th November 2024: Although the World Garden I’ve created at the Væres Venner Community Garden in Trondheim is mostly perennials, I fill up gaps with some annuals and biennials and some of them continue right up to the first frosts when they become mush. Most of next week is forecast to be sub-zero day and night, so this was the last chance to harvest. See below the pictures for the ingredients list. 
All the following were used in the salad and all were harvested in the World Garden!
Perennials:
Rumex acetosa subsp vinealis (wine sorrel / vinsyre)
Rumex acetosa “Abundance” (sorrel / engsyre)
Taraxacum tortilobum (Moss-leaved Dandelion / mosebladet løvetann)
Allium sativum (garlic / hvitløk)
Cirsium canum (Queen Anne’s thistle / Dronning Annes tistel); tubers
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / jordskokk); tubers
Annuals/Biennial:
Anthriscus cerefolium (chervil / hagekjørvel)
Petroselinum crispum (parsley / persille)
Fedia cornucopiae (horn of plenty)
Glebionis coronaria (chopsuey greens / kronkrage
Daucus carota (carrot / gulrot)
Brassica rapa “Målselvnepe” (turnip / nepe)
Flowers:
Calendula officinalis (pot marigold / ringblomst)
Malva moschata “Alba” (musk mallow / moskuskattost)
Fedia cornucopiae (horn of plenty)
Raphanus sativus (radish / reddik)
Black mustard seed
Seed processing season is upon us once again and all available space on window sills is full 🙂
Grow your own spice! These are seeds of black mustard /svartsennep (Brassica nigra / Rhamphospermum nigrum) grown in the Væres Venner Community Garden this year. I use them most in Indian food.
A diversity of rat’s tails
I remember years ago ordering seed of a special heirloom heritage radish “rat’s tail” (Raphanus sativus var caudatus) through the Heritage Seed Library in the UK. I remember that it was the gardener at naturalist Gilbert White’s House and Gardens at Selbourne in Hampshire that offered the seed and I remember that we ended up trading seed as they were looking for plants that Gilbert White mentioned; see https://gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk/gilberts-gardens
The resultant plants had long green pods. However, I lost them eventually. Subsequently I’ve tried seed of rat’s tails several times and the pods have never been as long as those original plants.
Radishes are difficult to grow here in spring as our long days result in them quickly bolting (still looking for a good day neutral variety). I remember reading that when wild radish Raphanus sativus was originally domesticated in China that it was for the young seed pods rather than the swollen tap roots.
I therefore decided this winter to source various rat’s tail radishes from commercial sources and also obtained seed of 4 (of 8 available) accessions from the German genebank IPK Gatersleben. There was no available descriptons, so this was a random selection. They were sown in May in the World Garden (Verdenshagen) at the Væres Venner Community Garden (NB! I do grow a few annuals on the world garden if they have an interesting geographical story associated).
Yesterday I harvested a few of each and was blown away by the diversity with long red, thin green and two more stumpy varieties like I had been getting in recent years when ordering rat’s tails. Below is what Cornucopia II says on this interesting vegetable.
Assuming like me that you will want to grow your radishes to seed for the following year, the land is occupied all season in any case, so rat’s tails produce more than root radishes. The flowers are also also rather pretty bicoloured pink and white and area also attractive to pollinators! I think I will save seed and deveop a mixed grex of these and more varieties from the gene bank next year!
And this gave the opportunity for a unique rat’s tail salad for lunch with radish flowering tops too, also delicious (see the pictures at the bottom) :)
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Early July Veg
Here are some of the vegetables we’re currently using.
From left to right:
Common sow thistle / haredylle (Sonchus oleraceus) will be in most meals from now to September
Parsley / persille
Ground elder / skvallerkål
Perpetual spinach (Beta vulgaris var flavescens)
Moss leaved dandelion (Taraxacum sublaciniosum “Delikatess”)
Oregano / bergmynte (Origanum vulgare)
Chopsuey greens (Glebionis coronaria); I’m growing out about 10 varieties from IPK Gatersleben this year
Day lily / daglije (Hemerocallis): flower buds from two species
Urtica kiovensis (nettle / nesle)
Nodding onion / Prærieløk (Allium cernuum) flower scapes
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde) leaves
Rumex patientia (Patience dock / hagesyre)
Rumex acetosa (non-flowering); sorrel / engsyre
Perennial kale / flerårig kål (Brassica oleracea)
Dandelion / løvetann (Taraxacum officinale)
Sherpa or Nepal onion / Sherpaløk (Allium wallichii)
Used in a green pasta sauce with wholegrain spelt pasta
Indian summer flowers
There were unusually many plants still flowering in the garden in October this year as we experienced a bit of an Indian summer. We’ve now had our first frost, so time to publish this album of 116 pictures of over 100 species. Most but not all are edible / edimentals and, yes, I should have made a salad.
White-flowered Sonchus oleraceus
I think it was Nathan Shannon who sent me seed of the white-flowered variant of common sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), now blooming for the first time!
There are 10+ pages about Sonchus oleraceus in my book and also other blog posts on this site, probably my most used vegetable in July-August each year!
A diversity of garden orach
I’ve grown numerous forms of garden orach (Atriplex hortensis; hagemelde) over the years as they are useful and decorative (edimental) annuals for the summer garden. Even though they are grown quite close to each other they don’t see to cross much. My red form (var. rubra) has maintained its colour for over 20 years in one small patch. Other favourites include golden orach (var. aurea) and an heirloom from Seed Savers Exchange in the US “Marie Barnes”. My favourite though is the Norwegian heirloom “Backlund/Bly” with enormous green leaves. Sadly, the seed doesn’t mature often here and I’ve lost it. Although this plant originated in Norway, it no doubt modified to its new home in the Mid-West in the US where it was maintained for several generations in a Norwegian family. See the (Norwegian) story here:
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/3_Backlund-Bly_Hagemelde.pdf
There are also a number of green Danish heirlooms like “Lille Næstved Skole”
You can maybe spot red and golden orach as well as “Marie Barnes” in this salad ingredient picture (click on the plants in the picture for the names) https://www.adressa.no/pluss/magasin/article9858403.ece?rs6280711594805805236&t=1
I use them mainly in summer, both in mixed salads and cooked in numerous dishes, as there are plenty of other perennial greens available in early summer.
See the pictures below:
No thanks no dig
Before I go any further, I should say that 2/3 of my cultivated area is almost 100% no dig (perennials is the ultimate no dig) as I grow perennial vegetables, fruit, berries and nuts. I rarely dig in these areas at all as I only plant once and don’t disturb the plants for years. I do still grow annuals on my raised beds…beds which are about 1.2m wide and are never walked on. I add compost on most of the beds each spring and lightly dig over to incorporate the compost and, surprising to most folks, to encourage the weeds to germinate.
There’s one weed in particular that I’m encouraging, Sonchus oleraceus (common sow thistle / haredylle). As I’ve written before (also in the 12 page essay in my book on the sow thistles), this is my favourite summer leafy green vegetable which I eat most days from July to September. It grows quickly and is actually more nutritious than standard greens. It’s also rich in antioxidants and I love it’s slightly bitter taste which goes well with pretty well any dish I might prepare, always mixed with other “vegetables of the day”. We ate it tonight in a pea soup and, yesterday, in a green pasta sauce and the day before that in pizza…
Yesterday, I weeded my second crop broad beans which were growing in a sea of “weeds” and as I weed I selectively allow the sow thistle to grow on between the beans and on the edge of the bed (you can think of this as “WEEDING YOUR WEEDS”). The video and pictures show the broad beans with the young self-seeded sow thistle plants in between. These will grow up quickly in the next 2-3 weeks and I harvest just before they start flowering. This doesn’t interfere with the growth of the broad beans which take much longer to mature to harvest. Later on, the next wave of sow thistle will be allowed to grow on the edges of all the beds where it doesn’t interfere with the main crops, a method used by the Maori of New Zealand which inspired me to introduce Sonchus oleraceus to my garden. Eating your weeds can significantly increase your yield. I must admit that I love weeding, a quiet time in the garden observing wildlife around me…….similarly, I love washing up, both quiet times contemplating. There’s even a name for weeds that are cropped…it’s a cryptocrop. Cryptocropping has been practised by many other peoples around the world.
Any nutrients or soil which might be washed out from my annual beds during periods with naked soil ultimately end up in my forest garden and perennial plantings below, so are not lost! However, there isn’t much loss as my soil is high in humus after over 35 years adding compost!
I’ve tried no dig in the past, but I would need a much bigger area to produce sufficient material for mulching and I also found that in my shady cool garden the soil heated up much too slowly and slugs were also a bigger problem.
In the video, I zoom into the low growing young sow thistle plants between the taller broad bean plants:
Red shiso
Perilla frutescens var crispa f. purpurascens (red or purple shiso) is looking good on the window sill in front of my desk! This is an important crop in the Far East both used as a flavouring, a dye plant, as wraps (the seeds, seed oil and seed sprouts are also used). I’d love to use the leaves to colour pickled chinese artichokes (chorogi), as shown on the Backyard Larder blog (see https://backyardlarder.co.uk/plants/chinese-artichoke), but the chorogi aren’t ready until November. Maybe I’ll try drying some leaves!
I grow this annual indoors as it’s generally too cold outside here in summer. It’s also difficult to save seeds as it doesn’t start flowering until late autumn and usually dies rather than producing seeds, a dead end for me, but now and again someone offers me seed for trading as in this case!
Perilla is also of course commonly used as an ornamental in warmer areas like Southern England, but I’ve also seen it outside in Gothenburg in Southern Sweden.
Perilla is in the mint family and it’s also easy to make more plants by taking cuttings (like basil).
I most often use shiso in my mixed salads.
