Category Archives: Bees

Rampions for dinner: one of the best edientomentals!

The most successful of the half dozen Phyteuma species I’ve tried in my garden has been a plant received as Phyteuma nigrum (syn. Phyteuma spicatum ssp nigrum), black rampion or (Norwegian) svartvadderot. It has much darker flowers than Phyteuma spicatum, sometimes almost black. I planted it from seed propagated plants in 2003 and this picture is from 2006-2007:

It has self-sowed freely and seems to have crossed with other accessions of Phyteuma spicata with white and blue (ssp. caeruleum) flowers that I have in my garden (these have not self-sowed much) as there is now a mix of colours in the original spot I planted nigrum. Phyteuma spicatum/nigra is also  the most popular bee plant in my garden in mid-June and a great edimental (one of the edi-entomentals, plants combining food, ornament as well as good for bees and other pollinators!). Phyteuma spicatum (rapunsel) is a very old root vegetable in Europe, mentioned already in Gerard’s Herball from 1597, but best known as a vegetable in France and Germany! The name rapunsel is related to rapa (turnip) due to its use as a root vegetable!
See my blog post from 23rd June 2017 with pictures and video of black rampion: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11910
I tried Phyteuma spicatum as a root vegetable in 2013 and was struck by its good sweetish taste:

I harvested a lot of plants this week (late July 2018) while remaking the bed where it was growing  and was impressed by the good size of roots and yields, although it is unknown how old the individual plants were (I plan to grow some of the smaller plants elsewhere to see how quickly they grow in a shady area of the garden, as this could be a good forest garden plant, although, like Jerusalem artichoke, plants in the Campanulaceae to which Phyteuma belongs, contain the diabetic friendly but poorly digestable carbohydrate inulin):

The flower heads can also be used as a vegetable, reminiscent of Bath Asparagus flower heads (Ornithogalum pyrenaicum) see the picture from its wiki page:

I saw the plant in the wild for the first time in Austria in the Alps on my Arche Noah tour in 2017 (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11483), the white flowered form, growing in open woodlands.

In Norway, it grows wild a few places in southern Norway and has also naturalised in parks, including the great garden at Baroniet Rosendal (see the video and pictures at http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=15680). It is also found in the far north of Norway in Finnmark where it naturalised during World War II, introduced by the Germans with horse forage!

The name rapunsel is related to rapa (turnip) due to its use as a root vegetable!

http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11910 (with video)

Other European languages: Raiponce en épi (French), ährige Teufelskralle (German), ährige Rapunzel (Swiss German), and Raponzolo giallo (Italian)

I’ll be offering seed this autumn via Norwegian Seed Savers (KVANN):

KVANN’s garden at Væres Venner

(Norsk tekst finner du nederst: We spent 3 hours this afternoon weeding and starting to extend the KVANN garden at the Væres Venner Community Garden at Ranheim today!
We need more people to help, so please let me know if you’d like to be added to an email list to get a warning if we are planning to work on the garden! It was great to see how the field is now full of pollinators and other benefiicial  insects like ladybirds. The pollinators (bees and hoverflies were on wild thistles and hoverflies were very interested in the quinoa which is now in flower (see the video below)  
(Norsk: Vi tilbrakte 3 timer i ettermiddag med luking og jeg begynte å utvide KVANNs hage hos Væres Venner Felleshagen på Ranheim i dag!
Vi trenger flere folk til å hjelpe, så vær så snill å gi meg beskjed hvis du vil bli lagt til i en e-postliste for å få en advarsel hvis vi planlegger å jobbe i hagen!)

Early May in Malvik

Just a random selection of pictures from the garden from the last few days!
130518: Added a  few more

160518: Added some Trilliums now at their best

Bees and other pollinators on edimentals

I’ve been observing edimentals liked by the bees over the last week…and the winners are the following genera: Allium, Cirsium, Papaver, Trifolium, Dictamnus, Knautia, Campanula, Codonopsis and Aquilegia
I only need to find the time to get out Tor Bollingmo’s (Norwegian) book and attempt to identify the bee species!

Stavanger and around

After my weekend course in Haugaland, member of Norwegian Seed Savers, Tone Lise Østboe kindly showed me around gardens in Stavanger and we also visited Rogaland arboretum outside the city and also a producer of bumble bees for the greenhouse industry!
Thanks very much Tone Lise :)