This is the closest I’ve got Yacon to flowering here, grown in a large container…it might just make it as warmer nights and sunny days are forecast for the next week…
Økologisk seminar at Bjerkem, near Steinkjer has become a tradition and it was a great day together with kindred spirits with a wide range of interests and skills. Thanks so much to the hosts Jakob Bjerkem and Berit for taking a chance in inviting me to give a talk!
My lovely daughter Corylus avellana is home again and I made this salad for her with a tomato called Moonglow, grown in her old bedroom in the loft, so it had to be a moonglow salad :)
On my way from Hardanger (Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Svendsen) to my walk and talk in Bergen in September 2016, I had a great evening with my friend Vidar-Rune Synnevåg. He is one of the most important figures in the organic movement here in Norway from the early 1970s, working towards self-sufficiency, organic farming as well as being a skilled house architect and boat builder. As a young man, he worked towards an alternative future from the early days through talks, articles, books and TV and radio appearances! A great inspiration for many of us here in Norway! And he is working just as hard today towards a better future, including as leader of the board until recently of the (formerly the Nordic Peace Academy).
See the opening talk he gave 2 years ago (in Norwegian) https://www.facebook.com/hardangerakademiet/photos/gm.1432468200392295/1586359414980393/
I have Malabar spinach (also known as Ceylon spinach or just Basella), a vigorous climbing spinach which isn’t hardy outside here, but grows very well and sets seed every years in an unheated bedroom, this year in my bedroom…should I be worried it might strangle me in its sleep?
It’s in the Basellaceae alongside Madeira Vine (Anredera cordifolia) and Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus), both of which have both edible tubers and leaves… I actually included all 3 of these in Xmas dinner one year (picture below) :)
Malabar spinach can be harvested here – I usually take a few leaves and mix with other greens – from August right into the depths of winter, a great winter leafy green house plant! This year I have both green (Basella alba) and red-stemmed (Basella alba “Rubra”) varieties growing alongside each other…
I presume that Malabar is the area of southern India where it’s a popular vegetable and I look forward to making Malabar bhaji next time I make an Indian meal!
Emma “the unconventional ethnobotanist” Cooper has been a favourite blogger in the realm of unusual vegetables for some time and has referenced this my little blog edimentals.com, on several occasions for which I’m deeply grateful <3
So, it was about time I returned the favour….
Emma has for a year now been tendrilling the big wide Internet for vegetable snippets to interest us, in her own words “Tendrils are my (ir)regular round-ups of the intriguing, plant-related goodness I find elsewhere on the interwebs. It’s my gift to you of a weekend of entertaining reading”.. (follow the link to be entertained: http://theunconventionalgardener.com/blog/tendrils-160930 and search for tendrils for more of the same, well different…)
I’d encourage you to have a look, you won’t regret it..and she even mentions my “Many uses of Udo” article in the current issue…
Emma is also author of a book with an intriguing title “Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs: Unusual People and their Plants” or something like that, featuring a rogues gallery of the vegetable growers world amongst which yours truly features.
Thank you Emma Cooper……
As I was working from home yesterday and not doing my normal bike ride, I decided to do a longer ride over the hills to the post office to pick up the Japanese seeds (different post)…I arrived home 3 hours later with a haul of, mostly, winter chantarelles / traktkantarell….I just couldn’t not pick them when I saw them :( Guess what I’ll be doing tonight :)
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden