Food Workshop

Baked pumpkin with Jerusalem artichoke, pepper, pee shoots and lemongrass
© Randi and Svend Sørensen

Food workshop – Samples and recipes with Danish Seed Savers own varieties. Part of Danish Seed Savers spring course, medio March.

Early in the winter I was asked to do a food workshop in March. Almost all crops was harvested and eaten by then. It was too late to sow new crops. Or so I thought. It turned out that I had time to cultivate pea shoots. And winter was mild, so there were left over small turnips in the garden, though the best was eaten. And while the focus was on seed saver cultivars, wild plants could also be included. And some fellow seed savers offered some of their crops for the day. So even in mid-March it was possible to present a wide range of flavours and cooking methods.

The samples was organised in stations. Clever women helped me set up the stations early in the morning. Each station should present a little harmony, but the order of stations should also guide taste buds through a landscape of sour, salty, bitter, umami and sweet. I had used very little spices, at the cultivars taste should be brought out. I had no intentions, that participants will copy this at home, but I hope the will feel empowered to explore old cultivars and wild edibles at home. Delicious cultivars are easy to preserve for future. Cultivars you don’t like to eat tend to be a pain to keep in culture. But often the difference is in the preparation.
The little old Errindlev pea was only four seeds from extinction. It was presented to the seed savers as an almost inedible, but old cultivar. I had been grown by an old woman in a village. She presented the seeds to younger people, but somehow her knowledge on the cultivar didn’t follow the seeds. Indeed, eaten as a green pea, it is no pleasure at all. But as a snow-pea and as a dry grey pea it is gourmet food. It almost became extinct before proper uses was discovered. Hereafter I listen more carefully to old people when they hand over their unique cultivars.

 

 

Salad of dandelion and turnip
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 1
Salad of dandelion root and leaves, turnip and ramsons, with a pine oil and verjuice dressing
My thought was that it’s good to start with a salad. I have experience with this combination, where dandelion sweetness, nuttyness and bitterness plays well against the turnips sweetness and kale flavour. Ramsons provides an experience in a completely different level and an opportunity to bring your mind off the dandelion bitterness. The salad sets the stage for subsequent stations.

Dandelion: Weed from my own garden, cleaned and cut into suitable pieces. The flavor is both bitter, sweet and nutty.

Turnip: Petrowsky Gulia, Ohlsens Enke strain, Vangede 1948. Originally I got the seeds from the NordGen genebank, has now grown it for two generations. A nice yellow turnip. In autumn, the peel is pretty sharp tasting, like radish. To my surprise, here in March, it’s quite mild and there is no reason to tear off the peel.

Ramsons: Picked in the nearest wood a few years ago, sliced, fermented and stored in sealed glass in the refrigerator. Appearance, aroma and texture quite like freshly fermented ramsons. A strong aroma could be felt throughout the room, although there were only used very small amounts. When it comes to ramsons, fermentation intensifies and improves the garlic-like aroma. It does not take more than 5-10 minutes to pick what I use in a year. Ramsons has a fairly long picking period in April and May. Be sure to identify it properly, as some people get poisoned from mistakenly eating Lily of the Valley or Colchicum.

Oil: Siberian pine nut oil. An oil with a slight hint of resin. Many know the resin taste of Greek retsina wine.

Verjuice: The juice of unripe Rondo grapes from my own garden. To increase shelf life, I vinegar fermented the verjuice with kombucha / vinegar culture. In this way it contains both tartaric acid and acetic acid formed by fermentation and the acidic profile of the salad becomes more balanced. Wine variety Rondo sets far more grapes than it can mature. I have to thin out in the grapes anyway, and then it’s wonderful to use it for a gourmet product like verjuice.

 

 

Chopped cabbage with eggplant, oca leaves and victory onion
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 2
Chopped cabbage with eggplant, oca leaves and victory onion
Danish use of raw cabbage has shocked all Russians I know. That we eat chopped white cabbage, without doing more of it, is totally hardcore for a Russian. They will either squeeze it with a little salt, or ferment it. At this station, we taste the Danish version, to remember it when we later taste the other versions. To balance the raw cabbage, I add acid in various forms: fermented eggplant, oca leaves with oxalic acid and the sour cream with victory onion. It is reminiscent of wild ramsons, and yet, not quite?

Cabbage: Purchased organic import from the Netherlands. The chopped cabbage is a standard winter salad in Denmark. It is included here for comparison of chopped white cabbage in later stations where it is respectively squeezed and fermented.

Eggplant: Grown outdoor in my own garden. Lactic acid fermented with garlic topsets (forgot the variety) and mild chilli, Medina. It is unusual to eat eggplant raw, but it’s fine when it is fermented – it can save a lot of CO2 :-). Fermentation seems like a long marinating, creating its own acidity and allowing flavour of garlic and mild chilli to penetrate the eggplants completely. If you have cold storage, either in a cold pantry or refrigerator, the various pickled vegetables are easy fast food, letting you balance a meal in a hurry.

Oca: I put my oca tubers for sprouting weeks before, to garnish with the fresh acid tasting clover like leaves. As oca is daylength sensitive, is almost impossible to grow big oca tubers in Denmark, but easy to make many small tubers. They store well in a paper bag at room temperature, and can be set to sprout fresh and neat leaves.

Victory onion: Brought from Irkutsk in Siberia. Victory onion, Allium victorialis, is a relative of ramsons. It is harvested from wild populations in the Siberian taiga, fermented and sold in marketplaces. In sour cream (smetana) it acts as a sauce or dip. Have as salted ramson potent aroma, slightly different, but clearly related. In my garden it grows at a slow pace like peonies. It is highly ornamental, a true perennial edimental.

 

 

Cider
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 3
Cider from Filippa apples and seedling apples from the local wood
Time for a little drink to clean the mouth and refresh the taste buds.

Filippa: Fallen apples from my garden fermented into cider. The delicate Filippa taste is evidently in the cider

Apples from seed grown trees: Several places in the local wood are growing apple trees obviously grown from seed. Every one of them are unique. None of them are juicy like Filippa. I have the impression, that they didn’t really do anything for the cider, just being bulk. No problem, as I needed some apple juice to fill the fermentation tank.

The cider was started with a bottle of home made cider, to get fermentation started quickly. When the fermentation was ended, I bottled the cider with a little sugar to a get a light secondary fermentation. This carbonates the cider.

 

 

Grey peas, cabbage, cherry plums and Jerusalem artichoke
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 4
Cooked grey peas, with squeezed white cabbage, fermented cherry plum and Urodny Jerusalem artichoke
Danish Seed Savers doing an EU founded project on rediscovering old peas and beans these years, calls for the use of grey peas. They need some crunch and acid from other elements for contrast.

Gray pea Lollandske rosiner: Old type of field peas grown by some seed savers. Soaked overnight with a teaspoon baking soda in the water. Then boiled two hours in fresh water with ½ teaspoon of baking soda. Since both yellow and grey peas are best second day, they were boiled up again and only this time I added a little salt. The peas do not disintegrate, but look like raisins in its own brown gravy. The taste is wonderful, although it is a very simple and inexpensive dish. Indeed, it’s also a healthy dish.

Squeezed white cabbage: Same cabbage, cut at the same setting on the mandoline. In this version sprinkled with a little salt and squeezed in a bowl. It takes approx. ½ hour, but you do not squeeze the cabbage continuously. Start squeezing it thoroughly for 2-3 minutes so that the cell walls burst. This releases enzymes, which starts a process that cures the cabbage to a gentle salat, even easier to digest. With 5-10 minutes intervals squeeze it again, and gradually it gets very juicy. The finished squeezed cabbage keeps for a week in the fridge. Make a big portion, and have fast healthy salad rest of the week.

Fermented cherry plums: Personally, I have had a slightly strained relationship with cherry plums. My mother was young during World War II. It taught her not to distinguish between plums and cherry plums. My childhood was therefore filled with cherry plums prepared by plum recipes, and it is not always successful. But a cherry plum tree in my garden has challenged me, and when I started fermenting cherry plums, it changed my view on cherry plums. When ripe and sweet, the fermentation will be alcoholic, due to the sugar content. This can probably become something wonderful too. But I pick cherry plums when they are still green but starting to turn yellow, and the sugar content still low. I wash them quickly in cold water, prick them with a fork, cover them in cold water with 5% salt and weigh them under the liquid surface with a plate. Then I store them at room temperature, to kick start the fermentation. After one to two weeks fermentation, I relocate them to a cooler setting (in the bottom of my pantry). Immediately before eating them, I soak them well in water to remove some of the salt. When young they taste very fresh and tangy, you can feel the carbon dioxide bubbles on the tongue. Later, after Christmas, the almond flavour of the kernels become more obvious, giving more depth to the flavour.

Jerusalem artichoke Urodny: This variety of Jerusalem artichoke is at the top in taste tests. And it is a clone everybody like, if they like Jerusalem artichokes at all. Here served sliced ​​raw.

 

 

Baked pumpkin with Jerusalem artichoke, pepper, pea shoots and lemon-grass
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 5
Baked Trombo d’Albenga musk pumpkin with Dwarf Jerusalem artichoke, green pepper, Errindlev and Engelsk Sabel ESA pea shoots and lemon-grass
Baked pumpkin is soft mild carbohydrates. They must be pepped up and meet contrasts. Here in the form of crunchy Jerusalem artichoke and sour peppers. We will discover, if we like this Jerusalem artichoke, and compare it with the taste of Urodny from an earlier station. Do we experience a difference between the two varieties of pea shoots. We will experience the taste of vinegar fermented pepper.

Trombo d’Albenga musk pumpkin: Musk Pumpkin is heat-lover, and need a good summer to succeed. This northern Italian cultivar does seem to be among the best adapted. It can be used both as a summer squash and winter pumpkins. Here I cut the long massive neck in slices ​​and baked them in the oven, with a little salt and pepper. All pumpkins (and cucumbers) is high in potassium. This can be balanced with the sodium of salt.

Dwarf Jerusalem artichoke: Served sliced ​​raw. This clone divide people. Either you think it’s the world’s best Jerusalem artichoke or the worst of all! In taste tests, no one find it to be in the middle. Taste it before you grow it. The flavour is intense nutty with dark mineral tones.

Acetic fermented outdoor peppers: Green peppers are really good sliced and put in kombucha with spices and stored in the refrigerator. Here they were spiced with garlic topsets, a little mild chilli Medina, and a little verjuice. Kombucha should not be too young, but have developed a good acidity. In my kitchen, this corresponds to at least 2 weeks fermentation. You can also use kombucha fermented apple juice (apple vinegar). Acetic fermentation in this style differ from traditional pickling in that the acetic culture is alive. I find the method good for vegetables that will not fare well in a lactic fermentation. Typically dark green vegetables. Some will surely love lactic fermented green pepper, I just do not. In contrast, the red pepper is irresistible when lactic fermented.
In this method, the kombucha or vinegar is fermented already, allowing you to use herbs that would otherwise inhibit fermentation.

Errindlev pea: The peas were put to germinate about 14 days before, mostly in the greenhouse, but inside during cold periods. Shoots were served raw. They can also be used on top of a soup, in salads or in a wok. This variety is actually a grey pea, ie. a dry pea. But it works great as snow pea and pea shoots.

Engelsk Sabel ESA: Same treatment and serving as Errindlev pea. This variety is a tall snow pea, a strain developed by Ohlsens Enke, and preserved in Nordgen.

Lemon-grass: A piece of fresh leaf on top, to give a little fresh lemon aroma. People do not eat lemon grass, but chew on it, to enjoy the taste. This clone I once brought home from Thailand. In the summer, put it out in the kitchen garden, in winter, taken in to the house. This clone provides large lemon-grass stalks. When drying lemon-grass flavour is well preserved, as opposed to lemon balm, which lose flavour in drying.

 

 

Fermented cabbage with yacon, hawthorn ketchup and red pepper
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 6
Fermented cabbage with yacon, hawthorn ketchup and red pepper
Here we come to the last cabbage, which is lactic fermented. As a German sauerkraut, without caraway, only slightly fermented, and still alive. We shall try yacon, which many have not yet tasted. In the wild end we taste the hawthorn ketchup. We also see the difference from the fermented vinegar peppers in the station before and this stations lactic fermented red pepper.

Fermented cabbage: Same cabbage and cut at the same setting on mandolin, as the chopped and squeezed cabbage from previous stations. This cabbage was treated like squeezed cabbage, and then immediately pressed into a glass, so the juice covered the cabbage. Close the lid and let ferment for one to two weeks. Every day unscrew and re-screw the lid, to relieve the pressure. It also gives a good feel for the fermentation progress. When you are satisfied with the result, store the fermented cabbage cool. The refrigerator keeps it fresh for a very long time, at higher temperatures the fermentation continues, depending on temperature. But there is plenty of time to use the fermented cabbage, even at not so cold temperatures. The fermentation can be varied endlessly with other vegetables, appropriate condiments and different slicing techniques. For those who do not eat fermented milk products, fermented vegetables provides the beneficial bacteria in your diet.

Yacon Morado: Grown by Kirsten Hedegaard.
Yacon is still a new vegetable in Denmark. Nutritionally, it resembles Jerusalem artichoke, but in terms of taste, one might call it the watermelon of root vegetables. Served raw, as here, it is sweet, juicy and crisp. Used in baked root vegetables it keeps its crispness quite a while before it finally starts to get soft. This variety is Morado, which has proven to be easy to grow in Denmark. It is grown almost as Dahlia. It is frost sensitive, so the tubers should be stored frost-free. They last well into spring by proper storage, and can thus still be used when Jerusalem artichoke season ends.

Hawthorn Ketchup: Hawthorn ketchup for today was made ​​with few spices to give a clearer impression of hawthorn berry taste. It is my experience that you have to taste the berries before you pick them. Pick from the bushes with best tasting berries.

Red open ground pepper: This is breeding material, that in a few more generations can become a new pepper cultivar. I grow it in the open air in each generation to make sure it will be a tough line. These ripe red peppers I have lactic fermented. Lactic fermentation brings out the best in mature red pepper (and maybe the worst in green?). I added garlic and verjuice to intensify the flavor. Verjuice make the pepper taste even more of pepper.

Station 7
Kombcha, ground ivy, Daubenton kale and Bergenia
Sorry, no photo. Again a little fluid on the palate. This time in the form of kombucha. For the brave, there is a version infused with fresh ground ivy. When you taste something unknown, it can feel reassuring holding something well known in the other hand. For this purpose I served some freshly cut Daubenton kale. The adventurer may also try a Bergenia tea.

Kombucha: Acetic fermented sweetened black tea. For this sample fermented five days, to preserve some of the sweetness. For other uses I ferment it two to four weeks.

Ground Ivy: A lovely spring flower and herb. I pluck it, and let it rest in kombucha some hours before filtering. Then, it can last a long time in a bottle in the refrigerator.
General considerations about kombucha and herbs: Many herbs can slow or change the kombucha fermentation. To prevent this I suggest you first do your kombucha, prepare a new batch, and only then infuse your herbs in kombucha. In this way, your mother culture is never exposed to the herbs antibiotic substances.

Daubenton kale: Small stemshoots served as a snack for kombucha. They were all eaten with eager, except what people took home as cuttings. This summer, there must be many small cabbages in many a seed saver garden derrived from this food workshop 🙂
Daubenton kale is a leafy brassica that never blooms, and therefore do not produce seeds. The are longlived, but can die off in cold winters. After a mild winter like this year, it is fantastic, filled with tiny tasty leaf shoots, which can either be eaten or used for cuttings.

Bergenia cordifolia: This plant I brought as tea leaves from my garden, and a Thermos of the fresh tea. Again I was surprised by the willingness to taste. In Siberia and Mongolia, it is not unusual to drink Bergenia tea. I recognize the taste. I was served this tea on several occasions in Siberia, without being told that this was different from not black tea. A mild black tea appearence, gentle flavour. You harvest this tea by picking the blackened leaves in february or march. Then the bitterness has leached out in winters rain. I washed the leaves in the kitchen sink before I wiped them dry and hanged for completely drying before storing.

 

 

“Cabello de ángel” and garlic cookies
©Randi og Svend Sørensen

Station 8
“Cabello de ángel” and garlic cookies
The end is near, and many wish some real sweet in the mouth now. A reward of jam on bread, which is probably not challenging, and the more challenging cookies with garlic.

“Cabello de ángel”: This was served on a small piece of bread. The jam was made from ​​a Siam seven year melon (Cucurbita ficifolia) by Kirsten Hedegaard, who also grew it in her garden. Siam is a very durable pumpkin that easily holds 1-2 years at room temperature, or maybe even 7 years, as the english name suggest? The flesh is white and stringy, black seeds. The flesh is also used in modern shark fin soup, saving the endangered sharks of the oceans. The seeds are also very tasty. I prefer them to C.pepo seeds.

Garlic Cookie: Oatmeal cookies baked with almonds, garlic and a little salt. There are several kinds of pastries with garlic that has been presented at our danish garlic competitions. It seems that to be good in pastries, the garlic must either be combined with chocolate or salt. Garlic in the sweet kitchen challenge our cultural concept of sweet and onion, but can easily be successful for those who are willing to accept the challenge

Station 9
Green and full ripe fennel seeds
Last station must open our eyes to the importance of harvest timing. And it must be the ending point for all previous stations. Inspiration comes from India, where I often got a little nip of anise seeds, when paing for a meal in a restaurant.

Fennel: At the end of the taste tests were two kinds of fennel seeds. Fully ripe seeds, which are also suitable for sowing. These seeds were harvested 2013. The second kind were harvested green in 2010. It was interesting that although both types taste of fennel, the green harvested, although old, had a finer and stronger flavour. The seeds were harvested in my garden, where I grow fennel as perennials

A big thanks to the talented women who helped me organize this workshop.

 

Permaculture plant sale opens

Aiah Noack with Hablitzia

Naturplanteskolen, a new permaculture plant sale opened Friday. It is perhaps the smallest regular plant sale this year, but with a unique plant selection, some I have never before seen on the market. So far the opening hours are Fridays 12-20. Aiah Noack, who owns Nature nursery, is occupied with permaculture, natural plant breeding and art. For years she did plantbreeding in South Africa.

I came home with two cultivars of allåkerbär (Rubus × stellarcticus) (it takes two varieties for a good pollination), Vietnamese coriander (Persicaria odorata) and a large piece of weed fabric in the professional quality.

Danish billberry, Vaccinium myrtillus

Typical for the exquisite plant selection, it is billberry of Danish origin, not Swedish or American, on sale. Not that there’s anything wrong with the others, but of the nursery sells the plants they think is best to grow in this environment, not what can be ordered in bulk from the Netherlands.

Daubenton kale flowers rarely, allowing it to live for years

It was fantastic to see the beautiful Daubenton cabbages. Aiah got a cutting from me, which she has propagated and sell. This kale originates in France. It must be maintained by cuttings. I got a cutting of Stephen Barstow, who lives in Norway, near Trondheim. Great to see that it is now accessible to ordinary gardeners in the district.

Naturplanteskolen: http://naturplanteskolen.dk

 

Calamint and Ground-ivy infused Kombucha

Larged-flowered calamint and ground-ivy infused kombucha

Time has started with a lot of seasonal products from the garden. Right now the garden offers lots of calamint and ground-ivy. I’ve only occasionally used the ground-ivy to steep in white wine in May, and the calamint for mixed herbal tea. Now I wanted to mix and cold infuse them in kombucha, and it resulted in a nice refreshing drink.

Kombucha (Чайный гриб)

I have my kombucha from Siberia, where it is called “Чайный гриб”. I feed the kombucha organism with strong tea with 10% sugar, after it has cooled. There should also be a rest of the kombucha tea left in the bottom of the jar. I cover with a cloth and ferment for a week, and then the nice refreshing drink is ready.
At times I make a fresh batch every week. It keeps well in a bottle in the fridge. When tired of the drink for a period, the culture keeps alive on the kitchen desk for months. Over the years I’ve had it survive several periods of inactivity. I was about to take another break, but then got the idea to infuse fresh herbs.

Larged-flowered calamint calamintha grandiflora

Larged-flowered calamint has a nice pleasant aroma, but lack some more rustic elements. It is one of the herbs that are both a herb and a perennial. It lives for several years and self-seeds moderate (easily removed)
Later in the summer there are some lovely flowers.

Ground-ivy Glechoma hederacea

Ground-ivy has a somewhat bitter flavour that is easy to recognize once you’ve tried it. This is both a weed, a herb and a medical plant. In Germany, loved by the name Gundermann. Before hops became universal in beer, ground-ivy was one of the herbs added to spice beer. In my garden it grows overwhelming, spreading by runners into the kitchen garden and establishing it selves even in the lawn. Really a herb for the low care garden.

My previous experience with ground-ivy is adding it to white wine. It should only steep for one hour. If steeping until the next day, the result is very different and in my opinion poor. For that reason I only steep my kombucha for one hour.

 

Time for First Frost

The banana plant, Musa acuminata

One of the most particular nights in my garden is when the first frost arrive, usually in mid October. Although the air at head height did fall below 1C, the tops of Dahlia, yacon and oca was killed by freezing. Oca only partly, as I have placed a box on top of the plants. Only leaves out of the box is dead. First frost typically happens in my garden in mid-October, after a day of sunshine, in a windless night. The bone-dry air lets the earth’s heat radiate out into the universe. The cooling then hits all the most frost tender plants.

Does that sound bad? It is not. It is another step into our future. Both tops of Dahlia and of yacon is fine to get frozen, because it reminds me that it’s time to dig them up. It will probably be a long time yet, before the frost reaches the tubers down the ground. But if I wait to dig them up, I’m likely to forget about them.

Other plants tolerate no frost at all. F.ex. geranium, lemon grass and banana plants must be completely protected from frost. I potted them up last week-end. Now they just have to get the best out of the warm, low light winter quarter in too dry air.

The banana plant, which stood in the kitchen garden, I had planned to overwinter outdoors under a thick cover, but as far as I can understand the good advice on the internet, it has no real chance to get through. So this winter I’ll take it indoors. In the photo it is just placed in the pot, waiting for more recycled potting soil. But maybe I will leave it outdoor next year. Maybe it just need a huge compost pile and a tarpaulin on top of it?

Lemon grass, Cymbopogon citratus

Lemon grass I have grown in the garden for several seasons, and taken it indoors every winter. It works fine, and some of the stems are nice thick. The thick ones we can eat, the rest can overwinter in a clump, be divided in spring and planted in the vegetable garden again.

Some of the lemon grass stalks are nice and thick

 

Angelica – a quick garden vegetable

Garden Angelica (Angelica archangelica)

This angelica germinated this winter where a seed was spilled. I am impressed with the growth rate and that it doesn’t need more heat. Last week I placed a large pot over it, to bleach the leaves. It makes them tender and delicious.

A large leaf stem made its way into the wok with Thai-mint, scallops and salmon. Angelica was the stand-in for galangal, with its distinctive perfumed flavour. A smaller stalk sliced ​​thinly and dressed with lemon juice and canola oil made a tasty side-dish.

Formerly I used angelica without bleaching it. It has been fine steeped in vodka. But otherwise it was a tough diet for my tongue. I had given up eating angelica. But with the experience of bleached leaves, I’m ready to eat angelica again.

Perhaps I should sow a little row in autumn with very fresh seed. Then I can again have fresh angelica in May next year.

Bleached angelica after harvest

I left two leaves – will the plant grow again, take another bleaching later this summer to be harvested again?

 

Frost in the Morning

Oregano (Origanum vulgare)

White crystals on grass and herbs early this morning. Isn’t it beautiful!
And yet, I do hope this will be last week with frost at night.

I don’t expect any damage, as I didn’t sow any very tender things yet.
But the open peach flowers might suffer, and fail to set fruits.

 

Lemon-grass

Lemon-grass Cymbopogon citratus grown outdoor

Some years ago I brought a piece of lemon-grass home from Thailand. It was grown in pots, inside our house during winter, on the terrace in summer. Size was bearable, and I was really pleased. But then I heard that pot is crucial to how large lemon-grass grows. The biggest pot I can get is my garden, so this year they were planted out in June. They grew well out in the garden, and my tender loving care could be reserved for other crops. The yield was higher because I had planted more plants.
Before frost, I took one of the plants into a pot so that it can overwinter in our glass bay window – it might as well hibernate on a window sill.

Apparently lemon-grass recover quickly from division and transplanting, growth halt for 14 days, and then growth begins again, exploiting the new conditions. It’s my impression, that lemon-grass isn’t especially heat-dependent. Actually an easy plant to grow if you don’t mind caring for it in the winter season.

The fresh taste of lemon-grass is somewhat similar to lemon balm. A delightful and slightly rough lemon flavour. Lemon-grass has the advantage of preserving the lemon taste well when dried. The disadvantage is that the plants has to be overwintered indoors. Well, left in the garden it will not be invasive up here in the north 🙂

One need not travel to South-east Asia to acquire a plant. You can buy seeds, or plants from garden centres. Sometimes I find fresh lemon grass in some immigrant shops and supermarkets. It roots easily.

 

Greater Galangal Homegrown

Home grown Greater Galangal Alpinia galanga

Like many a tourist, I bring home souvenirs. I have a preference for the botanical, non endangered kinds. Two years ago I brought greater galangal and lemon grass home from Thailand. They have both grown well since, but this post is only about the galangal.

In the early 1980’s I saw forests in Himalayas crowded with cardamom plants in the forest floor. These conditions I’ve visualised, when growing my greater galangal. Warm, shadow, nutritious, humid, but not wet. I’ve transformed it into a large pot, 23cm across, could have been even larger. Soil recycled from used growing bags from the greenhouse. The galangal never get direct sun. In winter I keep it withdrawn from the windows in the living room. In summer in the shade of the tomato plants in the greenhouse.

Peeled galangal

What to do with the root of greater galangal? It is always the problem when growing something exotic (to you that is) – how can I make use of it in a pleasing way?
Galangal soup tasted delicious in Thailand. But I’ve never learned to cook Thai food. Really I was just re-potting the plant, never expected a harvest!
A quick search on the internet: Galangal is sold frozen in Asian shops.

Sliced greater galangal ready for the freezer

The galangal was thinly sliced in a hurry, spread in a thin layer in a zip lock food grade bag. This way, we can pick a few pieces at a time to use in our cooking. Hope we learn to use greater galangal in our food.

Galangal going into the bottle

The annoying end pieces shouldn’t be wasted…what to do…..Oh-yes..I cut them in tiny cubes, in a little bottle, cover with vodka and a dog tag around the neck:

Greater Galangal Vodka

Now patience, let the galangal and vodka rest some months.
Will be a joy to sip in the midsummer nights.

 

Good Bye Winter

Artichoke Cynara scolymus Serridslevgaard

Now it is finally thaw. The snow has melted for two days, giving me an opportunity to look for some of the plants in the garden.
Have they survived the frost? In January and February, I have been quite calm. It is usually the sun in March, which burns my plants to death when the evergreen stands with frozen roots. These day I keep an eye on where the sun hits evergreens. Are there any plants to shade from the sun through the month of March?

Artichoke Serridslevgaard looks fine inside its little tunnel. But has the heart been damaged by frost, I shall not see it until later, when the leaves rot from the bottom. However, I have no reason to be pessimistic. The snow has lain in 2 ½ months, but it has not been extremely cold and the snow has isolated, so the ground has probably not been colder than in average winters.

Chusan palm Trachycarpus fortunei

The Chusan palm does not look good. Again this year, much of the foliage from last summer is damaged. I’ve got a sensitive individual? As long as the heart survives, the entire palm will survive.

Same Chusan palm Trachycarpus fortunei one month ago

Note that the snow has covered the palm hearts. The heart is the point at the top of the stem from where the leaves extends.

Kale Brassica napus Red Russian

My Red Russian kale has just today poked head up through the snow. It is a long time since I saw it last. It looks a bit weathered, but if I will not harvest more leaves from it, I’ll still get some tasty flowers shoots. Flower shoots I enjoy, for me it is the main reason to grow a little cabbage in my small garden. They come early, before there is much else to pick the garden. They can be prepared quickly in a little oil in a frying pan and taste fantastic. My favourite is stir fried with scallops and baby bulbs of bronze fennel.

Bronze fennel Foeniculum vulgare

Bronze Fennel has grown below the snow. If we get a couple of weeks plus degrees, I’ll start to picking some of the baby fennel bulbs. Taste of individual bronze fennel plant vary. The plant in the picture is my favourite, it tastes sweeter than the other bronze fennels I have.

In the calendar, winter says goodbye – but meteorologists promises more snow in the coming week!

 

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in one of her brassica beds

Alice grow her garden to harvest green leaves during winter. She’s very consistent in this, more so than I’ve seen by other gardeners. This makes her garden a very interesting wonderland. She grows a lot of brassicas, and select hardy varieties. The hardiness is naturally selected, as Alice save a lot of the seeds in her own garden, year after year.

Savoy Cabbage sown in autumn

Alice shared her knowledge on autumn sowing of cabbage for an early harvest next year. About being dependent on the autumn weather after sowing. If it’s too warm, the cabbage grow to a size where the low winter temperature induce flowering in the spring. If you try avoiding this by sowing later, the seeds might not sprout until spring, and you will not harvest earlier than if springsown. This spring half the savoy cabbage have gone to flowers, but the other half very soon form big heads. Alice tells she avoid saving seeds from these early bloomers. I didn’t ask, but I guess she harvest the savoy heads when mature, and then leave the roots and stalks to form flowers and produce seeds.

Most plants grow where nature let the seed meet the soil

As Alice produce a lot of her own seed, there is a lot of seed scatter. In spring they germinate, and Alice has to sow very little. Instead the best volunteers are transplanted or eaten at the babyleaf stage, and the rest treated as weed. In the photo is among other vegetables a row of spinach beet she will harvest during the next winter.

Italian Winter savory (Satureja montana), or would it be a kind of thyme (Thymus sp.)?

The Italian Winter savory was remarquable. First I thought it was an unusual lemon thyme, a bit similar to my own. A green carpet, an aromatic herb with a note of thyme. The Italian Winter Savory she found at a local greengrocer as and ordinary kitchen windowsill herb years ago. She is not really sure, if it is a Winter savory or perhaps a weird kind of thyme. It sets no seed, although there is both ordinay Winter savory and thyme in the garden to interbreed with. It’s an efficiant groundcover – Alice tells a little plant will cover a square meter in a year, it flowers in may and is perfectly hardy in Denmark, even in clay soils. I got a bit of it, and now it has to be kept within its boundaries, either by me or neighboring plants!

Alice’s frontgarden

The frontgarden is full of romantic flowers, a flowering meadow. It seemed to have flowers for all seasons. This peticular day the columbines, geraniums and veronicas were the super stars. It must have taken a lot of years to find the right balance between the many species, and Alice told, that the Thalictrums tended to take over, so every year she will pick out a lot of them.

One of the many small nurseries in the garden

Alice is a generous woman, and here and there in the garden you will find a little nursery. She is potting up a lot of plants, giving them tender loving care, until they leave for the right home. No reason to fear the killerslugs, though they live in the neighborhood. She use nematodes, and no plant seems to leave the garden without a douche of nematode water. The garden lies next to a meadow and a lake. Even if she keep the killeslugs at stake so they don’t bother her, they reinvade her garden again and again from the meadow.

Alice sets out to clean seeds of Musk-mallow (Malva moschata)

Alice is a routined seed saver. It’s a pleasure to see her clean a large batch of Musk-mallow seed in no time. The dried seeds are in the barrel. She rub and turns the seeds vigoriously a few minutes. Then she dives to the bottom retrieving hands full of released seeds. She sift them through old outworn kitchen sieves with different mesh sizes. In this way she first get rid of the rough debris, then the fine debris smaller then the seeds. The final touch is blowing the last debris ower the edge of a flat tray. All done in five minutes!

Thanks for a great garden experience.
Slightly changed on 9th. of july 2009, as Alice gave me feedback.