I love chicories, a huge diversity of vegetable and wild forms, some perennial, hearting types, dandelion like types, various colour forms often like this one splashed with colour, varieties used as root vegetables, coffee surrogate types, forms for winter forcing, hardy, tasty, healthy, beautiful when flowering (both white, red, blue and pink forms are available) and there are no pests or diseases here…what isn’t there to like about them?
I harvested them for storing in my cold cellar and forcing later on in the season. This one was used in an Indian curry with barley “rice”.
Did you know you could make coffee tea from the leaves of the coffee bush! I finally got round to trying the fresh leaves from my plant as a tea a couple of weeks back and it was really delicious, with a similar taste to coffee berries if you’ve tried them (the red flesh around the seed used to make coffee).
Coffee tea is certainly easier to grow and make at home than coffee coffee …. I’m still saving seed for a brew :)
Daina Binde from Latvia doesn’t drink coffee but has a nose for a coffee flower…as she discovered that my coffee plant was in flower, unnoticed by me, in the depths of my living room forest garden….
I thought it hadn’t flowered for about 4-5 years, but it must have done as it also had two berries!!
More about Coffea arabica “Malvik” here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3996
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
