I was blown away by the edible and medicinal gardens at the Janas Ecovillage (Ecoaldeia de Janas) during my stay there. Part of my course there was a tour of the gardens and when I enthused about the Portuguese perennial kale growing well in the gardens somebody quipped “Must be the holy grail of veggies!”. Well, not far from it, I’d tried to find it on previous work trip to Portugal having read João Silva Dias’ paper about it (see the last slide for the reference). I had contacted Dias (at the Technical University of Lisbon) to ask if he would share cuttings, but sadly he wasn’t willing. Imagine my surprise then seeing a woody plant that resembled the pictures in his paper. It was confirmed to be called Couve de Estaca (which I think means cabbage propagated by cuttings) in the ecovillage garden. The oldest plant was about 4 years and there was a newer two year old bed planted closely from cuttings! It didn’t flower!
So, here are a few pictures of the holy grail kale :)
The 4 year old plant
The two year old bed
Propagated by cuttings planted close
Picking older leaves for the animals
Picking older leaves for the animals
The slide I had been using to try to find the Portuguese perennial kale with alternative names for the plant from Dias’ paper
A flock of 10 bramblings (bjørkefink) and 3 chaffinches in the garden this morning. They were also taking kale (Brassica oleracea) seed (second film). I hadn’t noticed this before! A plan then to grow kale seed for the finches in future..
After my visit to Tim Phillips’ walled garden vineyard (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10678), I was very happy that Susan Campbell found time in a busy schedule to meet and she drove me to her and husband Mike Kleyn’s home and garden on the Solent… sadly, Mike was travelling on the other side of the world visiting family… :(
Susan is the co-founder, in 2001, of the Walled Kitchen Garden Network and began researching the history of walled kitchen gardens in 1981 (the same year that I moved to Norway, so I know it’s an awful long time!). She has personally visited and photographed over 600 walled kitchen gardens in the UK and abroad, making her a foremost authority on the subject. I met her as she had come across my book and on the strength of it invited me over from Norway to give a couple of talks at the Walled Kitchen Garden Network Forum at Croome (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=2554). You can read more about this network here: http://www.walledgardens.net
However, the main reason for my visit was to see first hand Susan’s sea kale yard, the only operation I’m aware of that delivers seakale commercially in the UK, despite sea kale being for me the most English of all vegetables and for some the King of vegetables! See also my blog post about visiting the Curtis Museum in Alton, coming soon!
Susan at the entrance gate to her garden, which is flanked by a large fig tree!
Susan is an author and expert on Garden History and Walled Gardens!
Edimental border with cardoons and day lilies!
Fennel
Salt tolerant edible Atriplex halimus hedge next to the sea!
Lavatera arborea, Tree mallow
Sea beet on the sea wall under Tamarix
Atriplex halimus
Flowering windshaped oak in the background
Susan’s Seakale yard! She has unsuccessfully tried to persuade neighbouring farmers to scale (skale?) up the operation, but none have been willing to take the risk…..and continue to grow rape seed…………
A box of blanched Seakale on the way to London! Photo: Susan Campbell
Showing where the seakale had been cut
The cultivar Lily White is the most popular variety… (with the restaurant Susan delivers to)
Allium triquetrum is invasive, but delicious and edimental!!!
Allium triquetrum is invasive, but delicious and edimental!!!
The watercress in Susan’s pond was gigantic!!
Gigantic were the Caltha palustris leaves too (marsh marigold)
Gunnera…we had a taste…not as sweet as the ones I tasted last autumn in Bergen and Edinburgh
Oak in flower
Phormiums…important food and fibre plants for the Maori!
Hosta ready to harvest!
Cardoons
An Allium I gave to Susan at Croome finally got a scientific name!
Allium barstowii :)
Pelargonium spp.
The traditional kitchen garden
Swiss chards
Susan has a large collection of old and new books…I could have spent the whole day there…including Vilmorin’s The Vegetable Garden. I could have stayed here for a week :)
Susan’s hand written notes on Seakale from her extensive card notes!! It’s been suggested that Pliny (1st century ad) was referring to seakale when he wrote of a kind of cabbage called ‘halmyrides’, which grew on the coast!
The Needles on the Isle of Wight from Susan’s garden
The shoreline at Susan’s house
Waiting for the train at Lymington Harbour, I was fooled by this owl sitting waiting for the Isle of Wight ferry…it’s head moved!
The train home via Brockenhurst and the New Forest…
…and as I left Lymington Pier, this Giant fish head cloud appeared….not sure what that was all about? :)
I found this beauty in my cellar at the weekend…it wasn’t variegated during the summer, but in the cool low light conditions of my cellar this is the result (from seed of a perennial kale grex that I received from Chris Homanics).
The best living displays of the diversity of Brassicas I’ve seen was in the Munich Botanical Garden in Germany in November 2015, including an apparently perennial kale I hadn’t seen before… Braunkohl “Rote Palme”. Please let me know if you know more about this kale, also if you know of a source of seed /cuttings.
Braunkohl “Rote Palme”
Braunkohl “Rote Palme”
Braunkohl “Rote Palme” shooting from the base is a good trait for overwintering
Braunkohl “Rote Palme”
Gemuse-kohl: Wild and naturalised kale
Wild and naturalised kale (found especially on the coast)
When I visited Japan in early spring 2016, I noticed a violet/purple flower growing as an ornamental in some gardens and also escaped as a weed.
In a Japanese garden growing as an ornamental
In the University of Tokyo Botanical Gardens
I finally realized that it was a plant I had grown for a couple of years (2011-2012) as an unusual annual vegetable, Orychophragmus violaceus, known as ‘Chinese Violet Cress’ or ‘February Orchid’, sourced from Horizon Herbs in the US. Despite one of its common names, it’s not an orchid but is related to cress, belonging to the cabbage family Brassicaceae.
Still in flower in November in my garden
Eaten alive by Brassica pests, bouncing back in the autumn with masses of shoots
In my garden
It hadn’t grown particularly well in my garden, but it did manage to flower and I used them in various salads during those two years, adding a different colour to the mix and it continued flowering right to the first frosts in November! It was also badly attacked by the usual pests of Brassicas, but it bounced back with masses of shoots from the roots in the autumn when the pest pressure was released. It doesn’t like temperatures below -5C and therefore didn’t have much chance of overwintering here in Malvik (it is biannual in the Far East).
Orychophragmus violaceus has a wild distribution in China and Korea and was introduced to Japan a long time ago both as an ornamental and also as a potential oil seed crop (you can google pictures of it growing alongside rape oil plants). In the wild it has a wide range of habitats from woodlands, gardens, roadsides and open fields. In Japan it has widely naturalized in many habitats thanks to its adaptability and it is now found throughout the islands, encouraged by gardeners who love the early spring flowers. In some parts it carpets woodlands in the early spring and it has been described as the Bluebell of Japan! However it is also a weed in gardens (and as such one of the world’s most beautiful weeds!). In Japan it is known as hanadaikon (“flower-daikon”), which name is also used for Hesperis matrionalis (dame’s violet), ooaraseitou, murasaki-hana-na (“purple-flower-rape”), shikinsou (“purple-gold-plant”). Shokatsusai / zhu ge cai is its Chinese name.
Salad with Orychophragma violacea flowers!
Salad with Orychophragma violacea flowers!
Salad with Orychophragma violacea flowers!
It has also been used as a forage species in China: “Its shoots are rich in protein, iron, calcium and vitamins A and C. Hence it is a valuable forage. Its shoot yield is high, about 36,400 kg/ha, when cultivated in Chengdu. This plant species is adaptable to grassland, barren hills, roadsides, gardens, etc. Its protein content is higher than most other forage plants.”
Orychophragmus violaceus is mentioned as an edible wild plant alongside Udo (Aralia cordata) in Joy Larkcom’s Oriental Vegetables!
Short entry in Cornucopia II
In my comprehensive Japanese foraging book…translation needed!
Here’s more evidence for the importance of having sparrows in our gardens! In the video can be seen both house and tree sparrows (gråspurv og pilfink) feeding on diamond back moth (kålmøll) larvae from kale leaves!
Many thanks to Sam Brown for showing me around backstage and for posing for scale next to this giant Taunton Deane’s Cottagers Kale, the UK’s only documented old surviving cultivated perennial kale! This one was acccording to Christina Damerel only about 5-6 years old. I was bowled over to see the cottagers kales when I visited 5 years ago, but hadn’t realised how big they could get. The pictures in the link above show plants that weren’t actually that old… The plant in the picture below has a similar stature to the Californian Tree Collards. Sam told me that the woodpigeons graze the higher leaves (you can see this in the picture), but the lower ones are left alone and are also better tasting. The “trunk” was massive!
More pictures from this still great edible walled garden when I get a chance!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
