Tag Archives: Perennial vegetables

Asteraceae: valuable autumn flowering edientomentals!

When giving talks I like to renew myself and talk about something different each time. For my talk in Copenhagen at the Future Heirloom event last weekend I focussed during part of my presentation on edimentals in the Asteraceae or Compositae (the aster or daisy family / kurvplantefamilien). These are tbe edible perennial vegetables that are most obvious in the autumn garden and often underutilised by chefs in the west. Visiting the World Garden a few days before my talk on 17th October, I gathered flowers from all the flowering Asteraceae and here they are with names:Most are used for their tasty spring shoots and leaves, used cooked and raw, and most have a characteristic fragrant taste / aroma loved in the Far East (as also Chrysanthemum tea is popular and a refreshing accompaniment to spicy dishes). Aster scaber and Ligularia fischeri are nowadays both cultivated in a big way as “sannamul” in Korea and even exported to Korean markets around the world. Young shoots of other Aster sp. are  foraged in Asia as is big-leaf Aster, Aster macrophyllus, in North America. Also from North America, cutleaf coneflower Rudbeckia laciniata or sochan was a popular vegetable for the Cherokee first people and in recent years has, maybe not unsurprisingly become a commercial vegetable in Korea. Annual shungiku or chopsuey greens Glebionis coronaria  hails from the Mediterranean but is today an important vegetable in the Far East! Others currently in flower are best known as root crops, including (in the picture) Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) and Dahlia. Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia) is also autumn flowering but doesn’t manage to flower here (is moved indoors to flower and bulk up). The final flower in the picture is marigold Calendula officinalis, whose culinary use includes decorating and flavouring salads, soups and other dishes.
Late flowering also means that the Asteraceae are also particularly important for a range of insect pollinators like hoverflies, drone flies and bees as can be seen in the pictures below, all taken in the World Garden:




Around the garden in 40 plants

To celebrate 40 years since I and my then wife Eileen bought Bergstua (literally house on the rock) and the garden that became The Edible (Forest) Garden, I endeavoured during the second of the two garden tours (as part of økouka – organics week) to talk about 40 of the plants in the garden during the 90 minute tour (see below)…and underway I discovered two firsts for the garden! Next time I must do an Around the Garden in 80 plants tour (it’s soon the 10th anniversary of my book!)….but would anyone come to a 3 hour tour?
Curious about what plants I talked about on this mid-September day, then scroll down as I list and have added notes about all 40!
…and another lovely group of participants took part on this special Saturday garden tour:

Here are the plants and subjects I talked about:
1. Urtica dioica, stinging nettle / brennesle and plant #1 for biodiversity in the garden: 60+ moth and butterfly larvae feed on this plant and various birds like bullfinch and redpoll (dompap og gråsisik) feed on the seeds in winter; I don’t cut down this patch in good view of the kitchen window for winter bird watching:

2. Urtica gracilis, California nettle, slender nettle is considered a subspecies of dioica and reaches over 3m in my garden on dry soil:
3. Salix caprea, goat willow / selje; even though not edible for us, it’s another key species for biodiversity important for wild bees, bumble bees and other insects, including 60 moths feeding on the catkins in mid-April and as a larval food plants and in turn for insectivorous birds, many of which like the chiffchaff (gransanger) arrive as the flowers open. I have several large trees in the garden:4. Vicia faba, broad beans / bondebønner; the authorities recommend that we eat more climate friendly / healthy vegetarian and vegan foods, yet much of this food is imported. Broad (fava) beans were the original hummus / felafel bean and we should be growing them in a big way, even here along the Trondheimsfjord where I live; this is the diverse local grex I’ve developed here, currently drying for seed and winter dishes:5. Phaseolus coccineus, runner beans / løpebønner; I’m also developing a local early land race that produces ripe beans here:6. Cichorium intybus, chicory / sikori; one of my favourite vegetables with bitterness lacking in modern diets. It’s a versatile vegetable and salad crop with hundreds of varieties that I’m trialling; is easy to save seed from and when in flower in late summer is loved by hoverflies – I also have perennial plants that have naturalised here: 
7. Allium cernuum, nodding or Chicago onion / prærieløk is probably my favourite and most used perennial onion; it’s super-hardy, can be harvested all winter, tolerates also heat and drought, is a fast grower and is one of the best edientomentals (edible, pollinator friendly and ornamental):
8. Allium wallichii, Sherpa or Nepal onion / Sherpaløk; see my book and search on this blog for much more about this great Allium; I talked about the pleasure of the Nepalese botanist and his wife who visited my garden and met this onion (Jimmu) for the first time, despite having eaten it all their lives – they had never been to the high elevations where this plant grows and is grown for markets, destined for lentil soup.
9.  Allium stipitatum, Persian shallot is one of the ornamental onions that are commonly sold in garden centres in autumn; they are productive, quickly multiplying here. They are used in the Iranian national dish yogurt and Persian shallot dip (Mast-o Mooseer) and often spiced up with the delicious ground seeds of Tromsø-palm (Heracleum persicum) or golpar! I showed both the spice and seeds of another Heracleum species that we use daily in various dishes, replacing cumin.10. Heracleum sphondylium, hogweed / kystbjørnekjeks: probably the most important plant in the garden for a wide range of pollinators – several rare hoverflies, wasps and wild bees have turned up in the umbels; it also flowers over a very long period and provides me also with golpar (see #9) and delicious spring shoots. It’s flowered this year continuously in the garden from June this year:
11. Allium victorialis, victory onion / seiersløk; see my book and search the web site for more information. Another great edientomental!
12. Hosta sieboldiana “Big Daddy”; the perennial vegetable that really shows the benefits, attractive, tasty plants that can be grown in places like the shady, north side of your house where you wouldn’t dream of growing annuals, never need irrigation, may well outlive you and are, surprisingly, very nutritious and productive. Cultivated as sansai vegetables in a big way in the mountains in Japan. See my book and search this web page for much more. 13. Malva moschata, musk mallow / moskuskattost is my favourite Malvaceae; can be used throughout the summer (flowers and young seed pods can also be eaten).
14.Malva alcea, hollyhock mallow / rosekattost; as Malva moschata
15-16. Aster scaber and Aster yomena are two tall autumn flowering species currently brightening up the garden; the former is a very important cultivated pring vegetable in Korea (see more in my book), the latter is wild foraged in Japan:17. Rudbeckia laciniata, Cherokee spinach, sochan / kyss-meg -over-gjerde, gjerdesolhatt; perhaps the most commonly grown ornamental in Norwegian gardens since 1900 is the most important vegetable for the Cherokee people of the Appalachian mountains; is now being cultivated commercially in Korea.
18. Vitis coignetiae,  crimson glory vine, Japanvin (can be seen in the background of the picture above); the grapes are small and my plant hasn’t produced any – leaves can be used as wraps.
19. Ligularia fischeri; gomchwi, Korea-nøkketunge; an important cultivated vegetable in Korea (king of the sannamul or mountain vegetables). More on my web site.
20. Dahlia, georginer; came to Europe originally as a tuber crop but was outcompeted by potato.
21. Secale “Mountaineer”, perennial rye / flerårige rug: we talked about the benefits of perennial grains which can give large savings in fuel, watering and fertiliser as with all perennial crops (both perennial barley and wheat have also been created but developments are slow)22. Solanum lycopersicum, tomato / tomat; we talked about two varieties (shown in the picture) that I’d recently harvested: large German Pink was the first edible to be saved and offered through Seed Savers Exchange in 1973. I was gifted seed through SSE when I visited in 2019 and it is now greenhouse grown by several in KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers); mine were grown indoors. The smaller tomato is probably the best early, cold tolerant variety I’ve grown (starting with 10 varieties 3 years ago, these along with 42 days and Turbo Reaktniy ripened outside in mid-August). 23. Fagopyrum tataricum, tartary buckwheat / vill bokhvete; I collect the seed which are used to produce buckwheat sprouts in winter in the living room; I’m also trying different varieties looking for best varieties for popping!
24. Fagopyrum acutatum, perennial buckwheat / flerårige bokhvete; used as a vegetable rather than a grain plant.
25. Campanula rapunculoides, creeping bellflower / ugressklokke; this is the only flowering bellflower at the moment, but isn’t the best edible bellflower – my favourite is giant bellflower / storklokke Campanula latifolia which has a long history of use in Norway, in particular, the sami people in the south and, historically, also Norwegians in my area harvested leaves to use in springtime soups.
26. Gunnera tinctoria is known as nalca in Chile where the leaf stems are sold on markets, used in the national dish curanto, a fish and meat stew; at this time of year the stems are rather fibrous, but can be used to quench the thirst. We sampled one of the stems and the taste was rather neutral with no sense of sweetness or sourness I’ve tasted before (participants got the quenching the thirst thing!):27. Actinidia deliciosa, kiwi fruit; I germinated some seeds from a supermarket kiwi 30 years ago, accidentally left the resulting young plants outside all winter and they survived and are still alive today on the house wall – no chance of any fruit here as our summers are too cold and you need two compatible plants, but the one surviving plant flowers every summer. 
28.Staphylea pinnata, bladdernut / blærenøtt; it’s 17 years now since I planted this tree and it produces many small nuts that taste a bit like pistachios, but they are really too small to be useful. On the other hand, the young shoots and flowers are very tasty.29. Taraxacum sp., dandelion / løvetann; I showed these boxes which contain 22 dandelion species which I received as seed from a dandelion specialist in the UK, all formally identified  this will allow me to more easily follow and learn the ID key in the Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions :) 30. Hablitzia tamnoides, Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde – as usual I told the story of my favourite perennial vegetable, still after 23 years as productive as ever and reaching 3m each summer on this shady wall (more in my book and this web site); I here introduced the role of Fredrik Christian Schübeler botanical garden in Oslo in the late 1800s in our knowledge of this plant as one of the best perennial vegetables today; this also lead to my involvement in recreating Schübelers hager, a network of inspiration gardens in Norway inspired by Schübelers own network of rectory gardens to which all my 3 gardens belong; see https://kvann.no/schubeler/om-schubelers-hager:31. Ribes divaricatum “Worcesterberry”; all participants sampled my Worcesterberries which will hang on the bushes until the first hard frosts:
32. Arctium lappa, greater burdock / storborre is one of the best edi-ento-avi-mentals – edible roots and flower stems, pollinator friendly and bird friendly as well as being an attractive (interesting) plant. The plant in the picture was planted there easily seen from my living room in winter when goldfinches / stillits arrive to feed on the oil-rich seeds:33. Scorzonera hispanica, scorzonera, scorsonerrot; the last flowers on this great long-lived perennial vegetable (much more in my book):34 – 35. Aralia cordata, udo is my largest perennial veg and is seen here at 23 years old with Aroma apples (Malus domestica) in the part of the garden that is most like a mature productive forest garden with all the layers of edible plants – lesser celandine / vårkål; ground elder / strutsevinge; ostrich fern / strutsevinge; giant bellflower / storklokke; Aralia racemosa, cordata and elata; redcurrant and blackcurrant etc. and goat willow / selje towering above. Ironically, I spent a whole summer terracing above this part of the garden, the steepest and now most productive! I talked also about how the first permaculturists visiting the garden in the mid-2000s after an appearance on Norwegian TV and a 3 part article on the Edible Garden in the national gardening magazine Hagetidend, told me that I had a forest garden! The garden is now also part of the permaculture LAND Centre network.
36. Castanea sativa, sweet chestnut / edelkastanje; as I was showing the participants this part of the garden my eyes rested on my first sweet chestnut on a tree I planted, from woodland in Southern England, in May 2008 at 4 years old.37. Received as Juglans cathayensis , Chinese walnut / Kinesisk valnøtt (the tree is laden again this year with the chestnut seen at the far left)38. Corylus colurna, Turkish hazel / Tyrkisk hassel:39. Rhus typhina, staghorn sumac / hjortesumak (we tasted “lemonade” bush)40. Malus fusca,  Oregon crabapple, Pacific crabapple; I don’t think fruits  on this tree had fully ripened before and I thought the taste was quite pleasant:

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Edible Plants at RHS Wisley Gardens; June 2013

A visit to RHS Wisley near Woking just outside London on 28th June 2013, one of my favourite gardens for edibles spotting….I’m resurrecting this album which I only posted on Facebook at the time.

Besøk fra (visit from) Arche Noah

Engelsk tekst nederst
I løpet av 17.-19. juli var jeg glad for å kunne returnere gjestfriheten gitt av KVANNs søsterorganisasjon Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) under mine 2 turer dit i 2017 og januar 2020 rett før COVID-en rammet (se https://www.edimentals .com/blog/?s=arche+noah)
Dette var i forbindelse med et Erasmus pluss utdanningsprogram der Arche Noah-utdanningen besøker ulike steder i Europa for å lære mer om flerårige grønnsaker og skogshager! Vi besøkte hver av mine 3 hager: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Felleshagen og Løkhagen Chicago ved NTNU Ringve Botaniske Hagen.
Vi fikk selskap av Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen og Judit Fehér fra KVANNs styre (bilde). Ursula Taborsky fra Arche Noah er nest til venstre på bildet fra min spiselige (skogs)hage.
English: During 17th-19th July I was happy to be able to return the hospitality given by KVANN’s sister organisation Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) during my 2 trips there in 2017 and January 2020 just before COVID hit (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=arche+noah)
This was in connection with an Erasmus plus education program in which Arche Noah education are visiting various places in Europe to learn more about perennial vegetables and forest gardening! We visited each of my 3 gardens: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Community Garden and the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden.
We were joined by Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen and Judit Fehér from KVANN’s board (picture). Ursula Taborsky from Arche Noah is second left in the picture from my Edible (Forest) Garden.

RINGVE OPEN DAY 2024

There were some 1,500 people who came along to Sunday’s Open Day at the Ringve Botanical Garden and as usual KVANN Trøndelag (Norwegian Seed Savers; kvann.no) had a stand where a wide selection of perennial vegetables could be bought and a 130 variety salad could be sampled, mostly perennials! It was non-stop for us 3 on the stand from the start at 11 am and many plants found new homes in the course of the day. Many members of KVANN joined us in the course of the day.
Thanks to Meg and Elizabeth for helping on the stand once again! 

I’d previously agreed to lead a group around the Onion Garden Chicago from the Regionalt Nytteveksttreff i Trondheim which was organised that weekend. I’d never seen so many people in the onion garden before as there was also a large group of people, many with insect nets, on a Humlevandring (walk around the garden learning about bumble bees organised by La Humla Suse). It turned out that the Alliums were attracting the largest concentrations and number of species, so we had to events together in the garden! FUN!!
Nyttevekst Treff

Encouraging dandelions

I’ve changed full circle from the days when I fought against the dandelions to nowadays actively encouraging them in my perennial beds as they will be my most important veg all winter when we eat them every day (digging the roots for forcing like chicory before the first hard frosts). They fill all the gaps between my perennial edibles on the beds in the video and provide food for a range of insects and birds (directly feeding on the seeds and indirectly picking off the insects). At the same time I’ve become a much happier person looking at the seed heads, representing hope rather than disASTER (get it? Dandelions are in the Asteraceae)!

Snow onions

A new video on my youtube channel, the wonderfully exclusive SNOW ONION from the China and the Himalaya https://youtu.be/5mOcQ4aUQVI
We’re back in the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim, Norway on 10th May and the first Allium is in flower. It’s Allium humile, known as the snow onion (snøløk) and one of my favourites and one of the world’s most exclusive foods, known from the ethnobotanical literature to be wild collected both in Kashmir, where it has also been domesticated in kitchen gardens and sold in markets, and in the northernmost Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Before you ask, I have no idea where you can get hold of seed or plants – my plants are sterile (no seed) – an exceptionally rare edimental (the garden website is here https://www.ntnu.edu/museum/the-onion-garden)

Lunchtime 2nd May Salad

We’re experiencing a bit of a heat wave here at the moment with high pressure, clear skies and temperatures close to 20C. The growth of my perennial veg is extraodinary for the time of year. I made this salad for lunch with a little of everything I found in a 5-10 minute garden forage with a few things from the cellar and living room!
The 37 plants in the salad are listed below the pictures!

SALAD PLANT LIST
Allium paradoxum var paradoxum (few flowered leek); flower stems
Primula denticulata
Claytonia virginiana (spring beauty)
Carum carvi (caraway; karve)
Lepidium sativum “Kandahar” (cress; karse)
Coriandrum sativum (coriander; koriander)
Aegopodium podograria (ground elder; skvallerkål)
Oxalis triangularis; flowers
Primula vulgaris (primrose; kusymre); flowers
Primula elatior (oxlip; hagenøkleblom)
Allium hymenorhizum
Allium cernuum (nodding onion; prærieløk)
Allium nutans
Allium senescens
Allium victorialis (victory onion; seiersløk)
Allium ursinum (ramsons; ramsløk)
Crambe maritima (sea kale; strandkål)
Allium scorodoprsum (sand leek; bendelløk)
Daucus carota (carrot; gulrot)
Allium sativum (garlic; hvitløk)
Anethum graveolens (dill)
Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower; storklokke)
Taraxacum sp. (dandelion; løvetann)
Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach; stjernemelde)
Cichorium intybus “Witloof” (chicory; sikori)
Scorzonera hispanica (scorzonera; scorsonnerot)
Allium schoenoprasum (chives; gressløk)
Rumex acetosa (sorrel; engsyre)
Allium carinatum “Pulchellum”
Allium angulosum
Cichorium intybus “Festive F1”
Hosta fortunei “Albopicta Aurea”
Taraxacum tortilobum (moss-leaved dandelion; mosebladet løvetann)
Allium zebdanense
Allium validum (Pacific onion; stillehavsløk)
Ligularia fischeri (gomchwi; Fischersnøkketunge)
Oxalis acetosella “Rosea” ; blomst

The 2023 Permaveggies / Forest Gardening course

The 5th Permaveggies / Forest Gardening course I’ve held in Malvik took place on Sunday 21st and Monday 22nd May with guest Jen McConachie who gave her forest gardening course at Presthus Farm on the Monday evening. On the Sunday we met at my garden (The Edible Garden) for a garden tour and lunch from the garden with focus this year on growing food while maintaining a high biodiversity. On Monday we visited The Væres Venner Community garden to see the World Garden and also the large collection of edible trees and bushes that have been planted there, followed by a visit to the Onion Garden at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim.
Previous Permaveggies weekends were held in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2019 whilst the 2020-weekend had to be cancelled because of Covid. More information on previous courses can be found here: Previous Permaveggies Courses.
I didn’t take many pictures this year, so thanks to Meg Anderson, Jen McConachie and Mark Tacker who took the pictures below.

Malvik:

In the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden:

After Jen’s forest garden course, the participants split into groups to design a forest garden in a field next to the farm which it is planned to be developed as a forest garden (get in touch if you are interested!). Here is one of the groups presenting their plans: