Tag Archives: Potato

Food, Perennial vegetables

Hablitzia, Laportea and Nettle Gnocchi

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What to do with the very last Sarpo Mira potatoes from the cellar? Last night’s dinner was Gnocchi made with Hablitzia leaf, Laportea canadensis (Canadian wood nettle tops) and stinging nettle tops. I must admit that our first attempt turned into a gnocchi soup, so we had a starter with exactly the same ingredients as the main course :) The second attempt was excellent though!

Hablitzia tamnoides leaves:

Canadian wood nettle (Laportea canadensis); the tops of the stems can also be used:
Making the gnocchi (potato used instead of grain for pasta):

Food, Tubers

Rhizo-bacalhau

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We occasionally eat wild fish and bacalhau is a favourite made from Norwegian dried cod that can be found in supermarkets here. More or less anything goes in bacalhau (bacalao) and although most people make it in the same way – layers of potato, fish, tomato and onions, often with chili – the Portuguese have hundreds of ways of preparing baccalao (dried cod). Being self-sufficient, detailed recipes aren¨’t useful and we use whatever is available at the moment. Winter is the time for stored bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, and taproots. See below the picture for yesterday’s baccalao ingredients with 14 home grown below surface storage organs plus some greens (I’m pretty sure nobody else had this version of the dish…ever!):

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa): yellow and red varieties
Garlic / hvitløk (Allium sativum)
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia)
Potato / potet (Solanum tuberosum) – 2 varieties
Jerusalem artichokes / jordskokk (Helianthus tuberosus)
Parsnip / pastinakk (Pastinaca sativa)
Scorzonera / scorsonerrot (Scorzonera hispanica)
Common onion / kepaløk (Allium cepa)
Cacomitl (Tigridia pavonia)
Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia)
Burdock / storborre (Arctium lappa)
Madeira vine (Anredera cordifolia)
Parsnip / pastinakk (Pastinaca sativa) shoots – had started shooting in the cellar
Leaf beets / bladbete (Beta vulgaris var. flavescens)  – 3 varieties
Allium nutans (forced in the living room)
plus (not home grown) organic tomatoes, olive oil and olives
(I forgot the dandelion…will add tonight: we make enough that it lasts for several days….and the taste improves!)




Food, Root crops

Xmas diversity from the rhizosphere

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Presenting this year’s 30 rhizosphantastic Xmas vegetables, all roasted in the oven, served as every year in the last 40 with nut roast, bedecked with the following seeds / bulbils: alpine bistort / harerug (Polygonum viviparum), Himalayan balsam / kjempefringfrø (Impatiens glandulifera), evening primrose / nattlys (Oenothera biennis) and opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). The tubers are listed below the pictures.

The 30 tubers, roots and rhizomes in the picture are:
Solanum tuberosum (potato / potet: 11 varieties)
Daucus carota (carrot / gulrot)
Oxalis tuberosa (oca: 2 varieties)
Arctium lappa (burdock)
Scorzonera hispanica (Scorzonera / scorsonnerot eller svartrot)
Tigridia pavonia (cacomitl)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinakk)
Beta vulgaris (beetroot / rødbete)
Tropaeolum tuberosum (mashua) 
Anredera cordifolia (Madeira vine)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / jordskokk :  3 varieties)
Brassica rapa (turnip / nepe)
Brassica napus (swede / kålrot) 
Dahlia (Dahlia / georginer)
Polymnia sonchifolia (yacon)
Sagittaria latifolia (wapato)
Allium cepa (onion)

Root crops

20 seasons with Sarpo potatoes

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(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.

Food, Root crops

Xmas day Rhizofantastigora dinner 2021

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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).


Dandelions, Oxalis tuberosa, Root crops, Tubers

Tubers and roots; December 2020

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A gallery of pictures of tubers and roots which were harvested in December when I had a blog-free month!

Cellar vegetables, Food, Perennial vegetable shoots

Falafels and cellar veggie wholegrain pizza!

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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!

Article, Heirlooms

Artikler om grønnsaksarven fra Hagetidend

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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.

  1. Fjellmandel og takløk (Mandel potato and the roof onions of Gudbrandsdal)

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2. Aleksandra hvitløk (Garlic Aleksandra)

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3. Hagemelde “Backlund-Bly” fra USA (Garden orach Backlund-Bly from Seed Savers Exchange i USA)

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4. Stjernemelde (Caucasian spinach, Hablitzia tamnoides)

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5. Vossakvann (Voss Angelica)

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6. Seiersløk fra Lofoten (Victory onion, Allium victorialis from Lofoten)

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7. Luftløk fra  Udøy  (Walking onion, Allium x proliferum from the island Udøy and Catawissa onion)

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8. Jordskokk fra Ontario (Jerusalem artichoke from Ontario that travelled the world)

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9. Maries høje ært (Marie’s pea…from Norway to Denmark and back)

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10. Tante Cis tomat (Tante Cis or Ansofs Gule tomat)

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Community Garden

Weeding at Være

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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!)