My attention was drawn today to two articles in which my word Edimentals featured (made up in the late 2000s): EDIMENTALS AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
“Edimental plants that are both edible and ornamental have emerged as a star of the Chelsea Flower Show.”
The article from the Daily Telegraph about this year’s Chelsea Flower Show can be read in the 3 pictures! The second article had actially been published last year on the BBC Food site. Here’s the link to “The low-maintenance edible garden for lazy gardeners” which both mentions Edimentals and credits me with the word!
WELCOME TO MY NEW SEED TRADE LIST FOR WINTER 2022-23, THIS YEAR WITH 338 CHOICES 20, 21, 22 indicate the harvesting year for the seed. Concerning seed quantity: as I don’t have many plants of each species, seed quantity is limited in most cases. Therefore, for some species you may only get a few seeds. Many species are harvested in my garden. Others are surplus from trade and purchase. OUT: Means out of stock. NB! Cultivars do not always come true. I offer them anyway, but no guarantees to what you will get! NOTE: I don’t sell seed and I won’t be doing many trades this winter due to a busy schedule. However, I offer all plus others to members of Norwegian Seed Savers (KVANN) through our spring (February) “yearbook” and autumn catalogue. To become a member go to https://kvann.no/bli-med. It costs only kr. 250 / year plus postage and packing. For trades, I am mainly interested in uncommon hardy perennials, but I may also be interested in annuals. NB! Not all plants in the list are edible, although almost all are! (The text in the list is at the moment only in Norwegian, but the botanical and cultivar names are included)
Clematis vitalba (old man’s beard / tysk klematis) is an important wild edible in Italy (young shoots which must be cooked) and also one of the most attractive plants in my garden for hoverflies and other pollinators! Saving seed this week from my 20+ year old seed propagated plant which provides me with a lot of entertainment (hoverfly watching on my balcony)!
Thanks to Eric Toensmeier in collaboration with 6 other groups including Annevi Sjöberg in Sweden and Karoline Nolsø Aaen & Tycho Holcomb in Denmark and Aaron Parker in the US for this interesting publication confirming the excellent nutritional properties of perennial vegetables. This confirms to me that integrating a range of perennial crops as vegetables in your diet is nutritionally highly beneficial, in addition to all the other benefits including using less energy, water, fertiliser and integrated in a forest garden system which allows us to co-exist with nature and a wide range of other organisms (birds, insects etc.).
40 years ago this month I came to Norway to find a place for us to live as I was to start work at Institutt for kontinentalsokkelundersøkelser (IKU; Continental Shelf Institute) in Trondheim in October 1981. The flat I found was here in Malvik kommune (Torp). To celebrate 40 years in Malvik I made a salad with 40 different genera. The names of the genera are below the pictures!
A little over a year ago we made pakora (Indian fried vegetables) with 65 perennial vegetables to celebrate my 65th birthday (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=25405) I made the following comment: “Just wish I’d had broad / fava bean (bondebønne) flour available for the pakoras rather than gram flour (chick peas)…next time I hope :)” Well, my wish came true and a Swedish guy kindly sent me a packet (sorry, I forget your name, but I think he produces this great slow food product; see http://svensk-fava.se). (I don’t have the equipment to grind my own broad beans). So here you are. The album below shows the flour, the pakora mixture, the 30 veggies used (list at the bottom) and the final delicious product, a dream come true, something I’ve wanted to make and talked about for years!!
A: Around the World in 80 plants talk in Hurdal, Norway in 3 parts with index to all the plants and topics covered in the film description:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMSyt7qqGE
B: Stephen’s salad: a six part series following me around the garden collecting plants for a springtime extreme salad in mid-May, also fully indexed by plant names in the film description:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvSB5cb_FXI
E: Perennial vegetables webinar organised by Swedish Eskilstunas folkhögskola (folk school), Omställningsnätverket (Swedish transition network) and with support of Hela Sverige ska Leva. https://youtu.be/DO_BdCXqaE0
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
