I wondered what the bread would be like using other grains, so I tried 100% wholegrain oat! Even I though I made it damper than the rye bread (that was a bit crumbly) the oat bread wasn’t such a success and was quite crumbly after 24 hours at about 75C….
Perfectly edible and quite tasty but there will be a lot of crumbs in the next two weeks (the time it will take me to eat these 3 loaves)
The most hardy winter greens in my garden are mostly rich in sulfur compounds including various onions (Allium) and onion-tasting brassica, Garlic mustard (løkurt), Alliaria petiolata or is it just coincidence that Alliums and Alliaria are both very hardy.
Does the sulfur play a role in giving these plants hardiness? The only other plant that I can harvest a little of in midwinter is Hablitzia tamnoides (although it turns red in the coldest weather).
Allium cernuum also stays green through the winter and can be harvested even in the coldest weather!Garlic mustard (løkurt), Alliaria petiolata is a short-lived annual / biannual that germinates in the autumn here and the leaves often make it through the winter and can be eaten in midwinter!
I finally got the garlic planted today after a week of rain and temperatures up to +10C had melted most of the frost in the soil!
Here are the garlic sorted for planting. This year’s varieties : Aleksandra, Estonian Red, Lochiel, Ävrö, Cledor, Thermidrome, Early Purple Wight and Vallelado (the picture shows all the varieties sorted and ready to plant!). I also planted topsets of varieties with large bulbils to bulk them up (planted close together)!
Some had sprouted as I had harvested them too late…it will be interesting to see if they all make it through the winter! I planted deep this year at about 10cm so that can settle in before the next cold spell!
I also sowed parsnip (pastinakk) today!
I see long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) (Norw: stjertmeis) in the garden usually only once each winter. Unlike most tits, they wander during the winter…and a small group of 8 birds passed through the garden today. I usually “spot” them when I hear their characteristic call. I was planting garlic in the garden and rushed inside for my camera! I was surprised to see them foraging on the ground under the bird feeder. I can’t recall seeing them taking food from my feeder before, nor seen them on the ground. However, they had gone again after about 15 minutes. It’s the white-headed rase (ssp. caudatus) we have here!
Long-tailed tits was one of the few birds I recognised in Japan in the spring!
I was pleased with the pictures despite it being very dark!
It was a false alarm when I wrote last week that the sun had set and wouldn’t rise again until mid-January. From my desk in the living room I noticed a bright light through my indoor forest garden…the sun rose and set again in the course of 2 minutes… :)
Sunrise through my indoors forest garden!
Forbordsfjellet on the other side of the fjord was looking beautiful today!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
