Potato-leaved tomato II

Flower of potato-leaved tomato Lycopersicon esculentum “Fleischtomate, kartoffelblättrige, Tiefgefurchte“, a german heirloom

Now my tomatoes are in flower, and I have taken some photos of the flowers. Note the stigma protruding from the anther “barrel”, seriosly increasing the risk of having a cross with another tomato variety. Often it will fertilize itself, by dust dropping from the anthers to the stigma - just remember the risk/chance.

Flower of tomato with normal leaves Lycopersicon esculentum “Svoi“, a russian family heirloom

In the ordinary leaved tomato flower, the stigma is not long enough to reach out of the “barrel” of anthers. Insects rarely interfere with the stigma thus set in its private little “dusting chamber”.

Potato-leaved tomato I

 

My uncle’s escargots

On the danish version of this blogMerete jokingly commented(in danish) that you can eat the burgundy snail. This comment made me do the effort to find my uncle’s recipe for escargots. Svend Holt had a small snail farm, and sold the prepared escargots to gourmet restaurents. They were popular, and I would like to share his recipe:

My uncle’s escargots

Burgundy snails comes in two sizes. The small ones must grow a year more, pick only the big ones.

Feed the snails boiled spaghetti in a dry cage. They eat the spaghetti, and when all feces is white, and the snail have retires to their houses it’s time to boil the water.

Add the snails one at a time, and boil for 2 min. Now you can twist the snail out of the house, holding the snail with a tiny fork, and try to get even the tiniest curl out of the house. Cut off the curls (intestines), and work the snails with coarse salt to rub off the mucus.

In a mixture of 1/3 water and 2/3 white wine add 5 great onions, a few cloves, 1 celery, 2 leeks, 4 carrots in slices, 1 teaspoon grounded white pepper, 2 spoons of salt, 1 bunch of parsley, 2 twigs of thyme and 4 laurel leaves.

Boil snails 4 hours, or 105 min. in a pressurecooker.
Meanwhile clean the houses thoroughly in washing soda solution. Control by holding them up against the light. There must be no remains of the snail in the house. Houses must fall to the bottom of the water.

After boiling strain, and freze the surplus of escargots in the soup. They stay fresh in the freezer at least a year.

Serve with garlic butter in the house, then the escargot and top with parsley butter. Heat them for 10-12 min. at 120 C.

This recipe is for 100-200 burgundy snails.

 

Breeding project purple fava bean, dwarf selection

Roottrainer with dwarf selection of purple seeded fava bean. Each row contains 4 plants from one unique motherplant

This year I decided it was time to separate dwarf plant from tall plants. To have the dwarf plants flower before the tall plants, I decided to start them in a roottrainer. I never tried a roottrainer before, but it is supposedly supporting better root development. I thought that big seeds would favor a special treatment. Ordinary trays probably would retard the root growth. Only one seed out of 28 didn’t sprout.

Dwarf selection of purple seeded fava bean. Each pot/box contains plants from a single motherplant.

Today I have transplanted to pots or boxes. Some plants are taller than others. Maybe the tall plants are tall because they were first to sprout, or maybe they are not dwarf, and thus shall not be allowed to set seeds or pollinate other plants. I will just wait and see how tall they grow. As long as I’m in doubt, I will remove any flowerbuds, and if they grow tall I can remove them completely.

 

The burgundy snail

Burgundy snail Helix pomatia

Weeding in the garden, I stumbled upon the burgundy snail. I must have looked frightening with the hoe in my hand, the snail quickly withdraw the tentacles. Could it speak I surely had heard it say: “I’m no killer slug”.

The burgundy snail is a welcome guest in the garden, just as the leopard slug. Together they are the reason I do not use slug poison, slug nematodes or the beer traps. The have their place in the ecosystem in the garden, the live here in moderate numbers and they are a joy to meet. Slugs and snail are also health food for the toad - he who rules in the garden. Only in case of a serious slug attack will I try to moderate the slug balance in the garden. It could very well happen this summer, as the “killer slug” was reported in the next street last summer. For that reason I’m alert on slugs this year, hope to stop them “at the gate”, and hope for help from the toad, the leopard slug and the burgundy snail.

 

Sweet Cicily

Sweet CicilyMyrrhis odorata

Normally this is a quite hairy plant, but my version is hairless. I originates in the woods near Herlufsholm, a former benedictine monatery, Skovkloster (1135). It’s about 20 years ago I collected some seeds from a large clump at the edge of the wood. Ever since it has followed me in the different gardens I have had. It also grew in the hedge of garden of my childhood, not far from the monastery, also the hairless variant. Not until I saw the normal hairy form in a schoolgarden in Copenhagen did I understand I could be different.

Every garden should grow a few plants of Sweet Cicily. All parts are edible, both root, leaves, stalks and unripe seeds. When seed ripen to brown, I no longer enjoy them, since they get fibrous and unpleasant. Sweet Cicily thrives in the shadier parts of the garden many find difficult to grow well.

It is propagated by seeds, sown same autumn or very early spring (march or earlier), as it is shortlived and need to rest in the winters frost to grow well. It is a perenniel, starting very early in spring, when fresh delicious leaves are wellcome in the kitchen. It is hard on ground-elder, and could be tried to control the groud-elder. As a weed Sweet Cicily is easy to control, as it only propagates by seed, and plants are easy to dig up with no resprouting.

It has a sweet taste of anis/licorice, can even be used as a sweetener. Green unripe seeds are irresistible when passing by in the garden.

 

New seeds from the seed meeting

Fieldpea ‘Biskopens gråært’

At the seed meeting there was a major seed exchange on the first evening (and during breaks the following days) I would like to introduce some of my new friends.

‘Biskopens gråært’ is one of the rare solid purple seeded pea varieties. It is a greypea, the oldfashioned fieldpea being a stable food in northern Europe in very old times. Now with famine well at distance the deserve a revival. I hope a famous chef will take courage to dicover it and serve it in modern ways. We have saved a treasure of these old peas.
This particular greypea is a swedish heirloom, passed on by SESAM, the swedish seed savers.

Russian heirloom ‘Goroh’

The pea ‘Goroh’ is an old russian heirloom from Kalmutskaya region in Russia. It has white flowers and rather small round green seeds, drying yellow. Originally from Dr. Tatiana Veronina (Moscow), via Seed Savers Exchange and a norwegian seed saver to Denmark. It can be eaten both as a snowpea and as a delicious and quickly boiling soup pea.

Wax pole bean ‘Gold of Bacau’

This wax pole bean has long broad yellow pods, and is an early romano-type. It’s an heirloom from the Bacau in northern Romania, passing Seed Savers Exchange on its route to Denmark. It’s said to have a gorgous taste, I look forward to the season.

Russian bush drybean ‘Bean 04-2006′

Russian bush drybean ‘Bean 05-2006′

These two russian heirlooms Frøsamlerne has got from Lothar Juffa in East Friesland, Germany. They originates from volga-german families, settled near Omsk in Sibiria. Zarina Katharina the Great called in a lot of german peasants to settle on land she gave them on the Volga river. Later Staling executed a lot of them and resettled the rest in Sibiria, where they have lived since.
Both are early and prolific drybeans, the latter a bit earlier and slightly taller. I’m about to develop a weakness for these Volga-german varieties, as I have only good experiences with them - they have stand the test of time and hardship.

 

Ørestad Urban Gardens

Work has started on the new recycled plantboxes

Ørestad Mobile Eco-gardens is transforming. Name has been changed to Ørestad Urban Gardens, and they have started to build large plantboxes.

“The garden project change character by becoming a part of the future Plug N Play area in Ørestad South. Emphasis will be on a strong and experimenting urban garden plan, compact, shielded from strong winds and with more common spaces for the benefit of all users” (from newsletter)

Gardens must move a little distance, expected in august. No ground parcels will be grown this summer. Plantboxes functions as nomadic gardens, and can be relocated by a forklift truck.

Claus with a plantbox, ready to fill with expanded clay pellets and compost.

The plantbox is build on a pallet. On top two folding frames. Wood is treated with linseed oil, and after drying the box is covered inside with a tar. In the bottom is put a layer of expanded clay pellets, and topped with compost. It should be faily light, to be transportable.

As I have the same heavy mix of clay and lime, I think it’s a good idea using plantboxes. The soil is very fertile, as long as it gets some manure or compost, and it’s not leaking the fertile elements. But in summer it dry out to a rock hard concrete like surface, allmost impossible to weed. Not likely to encourage a new gardener.
If I keep weeded in the often short periods when soil is neither wet or dry, it’s a wonderfull rich soil to grow. But this kind of soil punish you hard if you don’t understand it.

They have a newsletter in danish: nyhedsbrev

Behind Ørestad Urban Gardens stands the Area Development Company, Copenhagen Municipality, Agenda 21 Amager, The society Ørestad Urbane Haver and local citizens.

Area Development Company let the ground be used, helped preparing the area and led water to the site.
Copenhagen Municipality, Agenda 21 Amager offer finacial support.
The society Ørestad Urbane Haver take care of gardentools, the mobile shed, outdoor furnitures, and are in charge of the distribution of plots and plantboxes.

I wish Ørestad Urbane Haver a good season and a fertile future.

 

Kale flowerspikes with scallops

The main ingredients

Kale flowerspikes stirfried with fennelshoots and scallops taste wonderfull. It includes a shallot and a garlic. First sautee the shallot and garlic in oliveoil, add the kale flowerspikes, next scallops and then fennel. It’s very quick to prepare, as shoots and flowerspikes are very tender. Add salt, pepper, lemonjuice and applecider vinegar to taste. Serve with bread.

Stirfried Red Russian with scallops

Kale flowerspikes comes from ‘Red Russian’, fennelshoots are from the perennial bronzefennel, shallot is the danish heirloom “Kartoffelløg fra Læsø” and garlic is ‘Polish hardneck’, but other varieties will be good as well. Applecider vinegar I made some years ago by natural fermenting apples from the garden, added herbs and left it to mature in the refridgerator.

 

Red Russian flowerspike

Kale ‘Red Russian’ Brassica napus

Right now it’s season for the flowerspikes of kale. I guess the chinese call it kailan? They are crisp and delicious, a gourmet treat in food. You pick them by hand, snapping them off like an asparagus, in this way they break where tenderness have matured into fibres. I’m fond of broccoli, but these flowerspikes are even better - tempting to eat freshly cut. Could it be because ‘Red Russian’ is a cross between kale and black mustard with a doubling of the cromosomes? Extra cromosomes are known from a lot of species, right now I remember the two great and very different apples ‘Gravensteiner’ and ‘Belle de Boskoop’. No genetic engeneering, just results of natures strange ways.

 

Beauties of the day

Allium altaicum

Today this individual of altai onion is the beauty queen. Altai onion is the original species of welsh onion Alliun fistulosum, growing wild in the altai mountains and across to the lake bajkal. Being same species in wild and domesticated form, they cross freely, producing fertile offsprings. Both also cross happily with the ordinary cepa onion, but the offspring of this constallation will normally be infertile. These crosses can be propagated vegetatively.

Allium altaicum

Altai onion has a major genetic variation, also expressed in the color of the leave protecting the young flowers. Altai onion are of a broad growth habit compared to welsh onion. Nice in the garden, but not accepted in a commercial production. It is consumed in the same way as welsh onion. It appears at least 14 days ahead of chives, making it a welcomed crop. My altai onion comes from seeds send me by mr. Smetana i Slovakia back in 2004.

Welsh onion Allium fistulosum from scandinavia

This welsh onion I purchased at Tirups Örtagård many years ago. I grows erect. Contrary to the japanese varieties it survives harsh winters, as could be expected from an onion originating in altai mountains.

Welsh onion Allium fistulosum from datcha in Irkutsk, Sibiria

The welsh onion from Irkutsk is clearly a morfologic in the middle between altai onion and the welsh onion from scandinavia. It is variable and very hardy, tolerating at least -40C. To be expected from a welsh onion originating in same region as its wild counterpart.