This lovely pink-flowered common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) comes back year after year in my garden! One of the tastiest spring perennial vegetables and source of one of my favourite spices (from the seeds). It’s also a popular plant for bees and other insects! #Edientomental
More here:
The bumblebees love Allium pskemense, the largest onion in my garden, probably the closest perennial onion tastewise to the common bulb onion Allium cepa and it can be very productive, see my blog about Pskem Onion Soup here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1940
Habeetsia burgers or Bloody Habbyburgers?
Cooked and ground beetroots mixed with 100% wholegrain barley and rye flour, eggs and cooked Hablitzia leaves and Johannes’ shallots (Allium x cornutum), marjoram, salt, pepper and ground chili.
A collection of pictures of my extreme salads from the last 20 years can be seen in the gallery below!
8th July 2019: The first 10! To be continued…..
A front/tide line moving into the bay on 4th July. Floating material is trapped in the convergence zone of the front. The speed of the front can be seen in the second video.
This is a regular occurrence here which I see a couple of times a year. See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11274
A couple of videos of birds from this morning. First, a group of swallows (lævesvale) and a few swifts (tårnseiler) were hawking after insects above the tree tops in the garden today, desperate for food in the record cold weather!
Second, a grey heron (hegre) flying past.
First flowering of Allium atropurpureum…seed from Mark McDonough 8 years ago and planted out in 2012. I had thought I’d lost it and then it was suddenly In flower…always nice with surprises like that!
Allium validum (Pacific onion), an important wild edible for native americans and one of the 80 plants in my book Around the world in 80 plants is back in flower again for the first time for a few years. It had been in a pot whilst I redid my overgrown pond and boggy area.
Common sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) is now in season in my garden another plant categorised by most as a weed, but for me one of the most important vegetables in my garden from now until autumn. It even saves me work as the only thing I have to do is NOT weed it!! It is at its best when the leaves are shiny:
I made a sow thistle basil pesto last night together with basil grown in my office at the botanical gardens! I’m an office basil grower of over 40 years, having started when I was a student in 1978 (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=5221, where I made pesto and Allium wallichii, the Sherpa or Nepal onion)
Last night I used garlic and more Johannes’ shallots (Allium x cornutum; see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=22601)
I used to grow Oxalis triangularis, also known as the False Shamrock for the leaves and flowers. It’s also a perfect edimental house plant here as it likes cool indoor temperatures and struggles / goes dormant if it gets too warm.
I was given a couple of plants the other day, surplus to the plant sale at the botanical gardens. Repotting the plants yesterday, I noticed that there were quite a number of sizeable tubers and I had a taste for the first time. I was surprised how sweet they tasted!!
I’m making the most of my invite to the Mid-West Wild Harvest Festival at the end of September, where I get to teach alongside great North American foraging authors Sam Thayer, Leda Meredith, Ellen Zachos and others! I am pleased to announce a number of other events including a walk and talk with the great Joe Hollis at Mountain Gardens in North Carolina and an event put on by the one and only Eric Toensmeier in Holyoke, Western Massachusetts (I’m promised ripe pawpaws and American persimmons!), followed by a series of other talks in New England organised by my friend Aaron Parker of Edgewood Nursery near Portland! Here is the whole list (still possibilities in Boston and New York):
22nd September: Walk and talk with the great Joe Hollis at Mountain Gardens (near Asheville, North Carolina) (see https://www.mountaingardensherbs.com and https://www.facebook.com/MountainGardensHerbs); details not available yet!
24th September: Evening talk at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, Georgia; details not available yet!
26th September: Visit and talk at Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa!
27th-29th September: Mid-West Wild Harvest Festival (Keynote plus two*3 hour talks /courses); https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildharvestfestival and https://www.wildharvestfestival.org/register.html
1st October: Talk organised by author of Perennial Vegetables and other great books, Eric Toensmeier in Holyoke, Western Massachusetts (details not available yet).
3rd October: Talk “Around the World in 80 Plants: New England to the Mediterranean” organised by Aaron Parker of https://www.facebook.com/pg/EdgewoodNursery in or around Portland, Maine (details not available yet). The talk continues with the rest of the world in Portsmouth the next day:
4th October (19-21): Talk “Around the World in 80 Plants: The Mediterranean to New England” at the Urban Forestry Center
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA (organised by Seacoast Permaculture, North Shore Permaculture Collaborative in collaboration with The Resilience Hub & Portland Maine Permaculture ) (FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/842574716098048; Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/y25tj8wq)
5th October: Looking for organisers for an evening event in the Boston area (possibly a walk and talk in the Arnold Arboretum)
6th October: Looking for organisers for a daytime event in the New York City area (possibly a walk and talk in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden or elsewhere)