As I’ve mentioned elsewhere I eat more Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde) than any other spring vegetable and have eaten it every day now since the beginning of March (70 days). A friend mentioned on Instagram that she would love to see my plant! Well, I’ve just counted them and I have 36 harvestable plants and many different accessions now and more on the way…spread around the garden. About time then for an overview. They grow back so quickly even though we’ve hardly had a single day above 10C this spring that you wouldn’t have guessed that I’ve cut most of them right back! They regularly self-seed but they only see to succeed in naked soil where there is little competition. All the plants I tried in the forest garden area didn’t make it (in competition with ground elder, Aegopodium).
Bed 2: This is where I planted my second Hablitzia which was a seedling of my oldest plant and my first wild accession from Sergey Banketov in the Russian Caucasus, both planted in 2008. They’ve thrived and self-seeded on this bed which was too dry to grow annual vegetables under the shade of a large birch tree
Bed 2: This self-seeded plant has an exposed root.
Bed 1: Nearby under the same birch tree is where I planted (in 2009) the only Norwegian accession from Hadsel vicarage and a plant derived from seedlings I received from Jonathan Bates in the US. He received his plants from the botanical garden in Rostock, Germany
A few plants have self-seeded in a neighbouring bed from Beds 1 and 2
My oldest plant is approaching 20 years old and is still yielding well!
A second view of my oldest plant is approaching 20 years old and is still yielding well!
A self-seeded plant from my oldest plant
A self-seeded plant from my oldest plant
This one has also self-seeded in gravel in the middle of what was where we parked the car, now where I keep plants waiting for a place in the garden.
This one self-seeded in a wooden barrel where I was growing Alliums
This one self-seeded in a pot with a large bay tree which died. It now climbs into the dead bay!
Norwegian accession originating at Hadsel vicarage
Wild accession from Sergey Banketov in the Caucasus
Bed 7: Self-seeded and growing happily together with nettle (Urtica dioica)
Bed 8: From Tampere, Finland
Bed 10 (unknown accession)
Bed 10a/11: In front is a plant originating from the Uppsala Botanical Garden (probably originally wild collected); behind is Tycho and Karolines wild accession from Georgia (via Andrew Hahn in the US as I lost my original plants received directly)
Bed 11: Unknown
Bed 13a/14: This derives from a self-seeded plant that was variegated, but the variegation disappeared-
Hedge bed N: Accession received from Arche Noah in Austria in 2018, unknown origin
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