Daily Archives: June 30, 2023

Edientomental, Perennial vegetables, Root crops

Rampions for the hungry gap

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The rampions (vadderot in Norwegian, Phyteuma in Latin) has been naturalizing in my garden but so far keeping to the cultivated beds. I needed to dig up a few this week as it was outcompeting some other plants I wanted to keep. I cooked the roots and they were delicious and almost fibre-free and used in a salad. Along with other plants in the Campanulaceae this is a very useful root crop for the root hungry gap! And just look at the bumble bees swarming over the flower tops, always the most popular plant for the white-tailed bumblebees (jordhumler), one of the most useful plants to grow, both tasty (I use also spring leaves and flower buds), nice to look at and a pollinator friendly, ticking all 3 boxes required to categorise it as an edi-ento-mental!
Thr film shows bumble bees on a white-flowered patch of Phyteuma spicatum (spiked rampion).
See also these posts about Phyteuma:
https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=21018 (an article I wrote on the ethnobotany of Phyteuma “The perennial rampions: Shade tolerant edientomentals”)
https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=18624 (Rampions for dinner)
https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11910 (Rapunsel)


Birds, Butterflies and moths, Nettles

Don’t cut those nettles, share them with wildlife

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We may know that some of are most spectacular butterflies like red admiral (admiral), painted lady (tistelsommerfugl), comma (hvit C), small tortoiseshell (neslesommerfugl) and peacock (dagpåfugløye) may lay their eggs on nettles (Urtica), but did you know that just here in Norway there are 51 species of moths that do the same and two of the most beautiful were in the garden this morning:
1. The burnished brass / mindre båndmetallfly (D⁠iachrysia stenochrysis)
2. The small magpie / n⁠esleengmott (A⁠nania hortulata)
So, please keep a patch of nettles in the garden all summer (you can still eat the young shoots)…there are also several birds such as bullfinches (dompap) and finches such as brambling (bjørkefink) that eat the seed in winter!