(Norwegian under) This year was the 20th season of growing Sarpo potatoes here in Malvik/Trondheim and yields are as good as ever with 100% blight resistance! These were harvested from the community garden at Væres Venner in Trondheim this week. My favourite variety is Sarpo Tominia which seems to be a little earlier and therefore better for areas with early frost (they remain vigorous right through to the time when the first hard frosts kill the foliage). I’ve also grown Sarpo Mira since 2009 and have also tried Sarpo Axona and “Sarpo Surprise” (from true seed). Norwegian: I år var det den 20. sesongen med dyrking av Sarpo-poteter her i Malvik/Trondheim og avlingene er like gode som alltid med 100 % tørråte-resistens! Disse ble høstet fra felleshagen på Væres Venner i Trondheim denne uken. Min favorittsort er Sarpo Tominia som ser ut til å være litt tidligere og derfor bedre for områder med tidlig frost (den vokser helt frem til de hardfrostene). Jeg har også dyrket Sarpo Mira siden 2009 og har også prøvd Sarpo Axona og “Sarpo Surprise” fra ekte frø.
Xmas dinner in Malvik has been nut roast and roasted roots every year since 1984! This year there were 27 different roots: parsnip, 15 different varieties of potato, bulb onions, Tigridia (cacomitl), wapato (Sagittaria), carrot, beetroot, oca (red and yellow), Madeira vine (Anredera cordifolia), yacon (Polymnia), garlic (Allium sativum), Dioscorea polystachya (Chinese yam) and chicory root (at the top). The nut roast was made from ground walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds with grated carrots, onion and beetroot with garlic, golpar (Heracleum seed spice), egg, salt, pepper and chili, bedecked with buckwheat groats (home grown by a friend in Czechoslovakia), Himalayan balsam seed, caraway, dill and alpine bistort bulbils (Polygonum viviparum).
A gallery of pictures of tubers and roots which were harvested in December when I had a blog-free month!
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) harvest on 24th December 2020; I still have two varieties, a red and a yellow, grown in pots and then brought inside to tuberise (I usually grow under lights, but this year without lights I got a similar yield).
Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) harvest on 24th December 2020; I still have two varieties, a red and a yellow, grown in pots and then brought inside to tuberise (I usually grow under lights, but this year without lights I got a similar yield).
Great to be home again to nutritious vegetarian food! Presenting this week’s two dishes, each lasting two days: dried broad bean falafels (with golpar spice) and a mixed cellar veggie wholegrain sourdough pizza with masses of forced dandelions and perennial kale shoots!
Broad bean falafels with potato and Begonia heracleifolia flowers
This week is Norwegian potetferie or potato holiday. This was originally to give kids time off school to help on the home farm to harvest potatoes! Good to see that my grandkids are following this tradition :)
I 2011 skrev jeg en serie artikler om vår grønnsaksarven til Norsk Hagetidend. Etter Skog og Landskap sidene ble nedlagt er artiklene ikke lenge tilgjengelig på nettet. Derfor dette innlegget hvor alle artiklene kan igjen bli lastet ned! Artikelene blir også etter hvert lagt ut hos kvann.org (Norwegian Seed Savers/KVANNs webside).
English: In 2011, I wrote a series of one page articles about Norwegian heirloom vegetables in Norsk Hagetidend (the magazine of the Norwegian Horticultural Society) in Norwegian. The complete series can be found below.
Fjellmandel og takløk (Mandel potato and the roof onions of Gudbrandsdal)
Spent the day with assorted Væres Venner (Friends of Være) weeding the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Saver) gardens. The good news is that almost all the couch grass has been removed from the world garden (using bastard digging and weeding the few that came up again!)
Weeding finished on the temporary bed that will be expanded to become KVANNs Verdenshage (World garden), a circular bed where the straw is with some 80 edible mostly perennials from around the world planted geographically with the centre representing the North Pole!
KVANN’s plant nursery has a number of trees and shrubs, to be eventually spread around the garden, but a few vegetables too
Quinoa “Stephe” with a number of different broad bean (fava) or bondebønner cultivars
Old Norwegian potatoes
Another group (Marina Bakhtina) are working on an insect friendly garden and a so-called Benje’s Hedge (Benjes hekk) has been erected; see https://giy.ie/archive/growing-a-natural-hedge-without-even-planting-it.html
There’s still plenty of space for other folks and projects!
Below are a series of pictures of my favourite potatoes which I grew until 2012-2013 when blight made it difficult to grow varieties with little resistence:
Blå (blue) Kongo (left) and Kampion
King Edward, Blå Kongo and Kampion
King Edward, Blå Kongo and Kampion
See next picture for IDs
Same as the last picture but slightly rearranged
Kampion has roundish tubers, deep eyes and the skin is dark purple. The flesh has a dark purple ring about 5-10mm under the skin. Otherwise the flesh is yellowish.
19 different potatoes cooked for my daughter’s birthday in 2012 (see the next picture for IDs)
19 different potatoes cooked for my daughter’s birthday in 2012
In 2008 I still had a greenhouse. After it was destroyed in the 26th December 2011 I decided not to rebuild it and to only grow hardy vegetables. However, in 2008, I grew a number of less hardy vegetables including several from the Andes mountains. One of these was Achocha (Cyclanthera pedata), although yields of fruits wasn’t very big (I grew it for several years from 2002-2012) and I would have probably been better off eating the shoots and leaves which are also edible and pretty good! Interestingly, my Nepalese guests (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6118) told me it was commonly grown in Nepal and they not only used the small green fruits, but the top shoots and the black seeds. The latter are roasted, ground and mixed with salt, chili and perhaps lemon. The powder is also used as a flavouring in chutney!
Picture: Achocha “Fat Baby” fruits
Pictures : Various Andean vegetables in my garden on 12th July Quinoa, Yellow Finn, Ulluco#1, Shetland Blue Eye; Achocha Fat Baby, Amaranth, Russepotet, Oca, Blå Congo, Ulluco#2, Mashua
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
