Earlier I told you about my favorite winter activity, scouring the internet in search of special seeds and plants. I hereby present a few previous discoveries.
After a timid experience with ordering seeds from the websites of seed traders at home and abroad, I have now become very frenzied. Without hesitation, I order seeds from a wide variety of places with the associated anticipation.
Special, partly forgotten vegetable seeds at Kokopelli in France, rare sage varieties at Seedhunt in California and wonderful tomatoes at tomatoestogether.com in Germany. All companies where the love for their trade predominates, not the idea of wanting to get rich quickly. Kokopelli even founded a foundation with the idea of making seeds accessible free of charge to poor farmers in third world countries. But I also like to look at Dutch sites.
For example, according to the Vreeken’s Zaden website, the foliage of the bladder silene, also native to our country, is a popular delicacy around the Mediterranean. Of course I wanted to experience that myself, sowing is a piece of cake, and I must say: the taste is certainly not bad. I couldn’t immediately get the promised pea-like fruit out, but freshly picked spinach is just as good. At most, it is quite a bit of work to harvest the delicate leaves.
Faster, easier and just as tasty
Turkish leaf spinach (a vegetable that is not grown enough) is faster, easier and certainly just as tasty. Now that we’re talking about spinach-like flavors, I can also immediately report on eating goosefoot. More specifically the tree spinach, a name that this plant with a height of over 2 meters rightly bears.
This giant, which resembles a mellow, has the pleasant side effect that its young foliage is strikingly magenta in color. That makes this annual an attractive ornamental plant. The young foliage tastes like spinach, but with a slightly bitter base note.
I also noticed a few edible flowers, but less obvious ones. Such as that of the Judas medal. Beautiful, intense lilac color, sweet in taste and slightly spicy. Or the flowers of the Forsythia , also good to eat, just like that of the broom. With broom I must note that after the initial honey taste has disappeared, a rather pungent taste remains that I did not immediately experience as pleasant.
As a seasoning and color enhancer
But the queen among edible flowers is the magnolia. No matter which magnolia, they are all edible and in many ways. Fresh as a seasoning and color enhancer in the obligatory salad, with chicory and goat’s cheese. Or mixed with walnuts and onions as a filling for vegetarian ravioli
And of course the purple flowering varieties as a subtle addition to homemade ice cream (or mixing pureed petals into purchased ice cream, just as tasty, much easier). The result is beautiful lilac ice cream with a refined, sweet aroma. Finally, the lemon-tasting petals of tuberous begonia. Especially tasty as a fresh garnish for a summer ice cream.
You won’t have enough winter months if you want to go through all the websites with special plants. Before you know it, the days will be significantly longer and you can go back into the garden with fresh inspiration.