Post by stevil on Feb 13, 2009 12:35:08 GMT -5
Having munched my way through well over 2,000 perennial veggies now, I have two current favourites, but there are many, many, many more, but I'll limit it to these two for now.....
Both are productive tasty “spinach plants” that can be harvested year after year in a forest garden, although they will also grow in the open as long as they don't dry out.
One is a common garden ornamental that most of us will be familiar with. There are over 5,000 varieties of this one (or genus), but I haven't found any vegetable varieties yet (although there could be as it is used for food in Japan; it is not mentioned by Larkcom). It is used from late spring to summer, and later has edible flowers. It is none other than the Hosta...
Early spring “Hostons”, ready to harvest:
Making Hosta sushi
Hosta sieboldiana in flower:
If anyone wants to read more, I have a pdf of an article that came out recently in Permaculture Magazine, email me for a copy...
The other is as far as I know only used as a food plant in the Nordic countries (Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Norway), but only by a select few, the chosen ones. Apart from that there are a few people that I have sent seed to in the US, Denmark and UK, and a second wave about 2 years from now who will soon be gorging on it. It is available very early in spring and it actually forms shoots in the autumn and these stand all winter with only minor frost damage. It is very hardy and can be cultivated throughout Scandinavia. It is Hablitzia tamnoides – Nordic Spinach or Caucasian Spinach (it hails from the Caucasus).
Hablitzia harvested in March under the snow with Allium paradoxum leaves
Hablitzia spring shoots in April (I have harvested all the shoots 3 times in April, over 100 shoots on one plant)
Hablitzia is a woodlander and prefers dampish soil and climbs to 3m in summer:
Unfortunately, I probably won’t have seed until the autumn now as I have offered seed to the Norwegian Seed Savers and they have priority for the few seed I have left. I may possibly be getting some more seed in April, so contact me then if you are desperate to try it.
You can read more about it here, published a couple of years ago in Permaculture Magazine:
communitysupportedforestry.com/Stephen_Hablitzia_Article.pdf
Incidentally, I have just recently been asked to run a small project for the Nordic Gene Bank, collecting and comparing Hablitzia plants grown for a long time in Scandinavia (some can be traced back perhaps 100-years; the first introductions were around 1870 as an ornamental) with wild collected material from the Caucasus.
Let me know how you get on if you have ago of either of these...
Cheers, Stephen
Both are productive tasty “spinach plants” that can be harvested year after year in a forest garden, although they will also grow in the open as long as they don't dry out.
One is a common garden ornamental that most of us will be familiar with. There are over 5,000 varieties of this one (or genus), but I haven't found any vegetable varieties yet (although there could be as it is used for food in Japan; it is not mentioned by Larkcom). It is used from late spring to summer, and later has edible flowers. It is none other than the Hosta...
Early spring “Hostons”, ready to harvest:
Making Hosta sushi
Hosta sieboldiana in flower:
If anyone wants to read more, I have a pdf of an article that came out recently in Permaculture Magazine, email me for a copy...
The other is as far as I know only used as a food plant in the Nordic countries (Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Norway), but only by a select few, the chosen ones. Apart from that there are a few people that I have sent seed to in the US, Denmark and UK, and a second wave about 2 years from now who will soon be gorging on it. It is available very early in spring and it actually forms shoots in the autumn and these stand all winter with only minor frost damage. It is very hardy and can be cultivated throughout Scandinavia. It is Hablitzia tamnoides – Nordic Spinach or Caucasian Spinach (it hails from the Caucasus).
Hablitzia harvested in March under the snow with Allium paradoxum leaves
Hablitzia spring shoots in April (I have harvested all the shoots 3 times in April, over 100 shoots on one plant)
Hablitzia is a woodlander and prefers dampish soil and climbs to 3m in summer:
Unfortunately, I probably won’t have seed until the autumn now as I have offered seed to the Norwegian Seed Savers and they have priority for the few seed I have left. I may possibly be getting some more seed in April, so contact me then if you are desperate to try it.
You can read more about it here, published a couple of years ago in Permaculture Magazine:
communitysupportedforestry.com/Stephen_Hablitzia_Article.pdf
Incidentally, I have just recently been asked to run a small project for the Nordic Gene Bank, collecting and comparing Hablitzia plants grown for a long time in Scandinavia (some can be traced back perhaps 100-years; the first introductions were around 1870 as an ornamental) with wild collected material from the Caucasus.
Let me know how you get on if you have ago of either of these...
Cheers, Stephen