permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Edimentals  ! | Edibles & ornamental plants
Stephen Barstow
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/

BOOK:

*Around The World in 80 Plants : An Edible Perennial Vegetable Adventure
For Temperate Climates*, by Stephen Barstow

For book reviews, see here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=271

*Around The World In 80 Plants *takes us on an inspiring edible adventure
across the continents, introduacing us to the author’s top 80 perennial
vegetables, with inspiration along the way from local foraging traditions
and small scale domestication. Each plant has its own ethnobotanical story
to tell; introducing Sherpa vegetables of the Himalayas; forest gardened
and foraged vegetables of the Sámi people of Arctic Scandinavia; a
super-vegetable of the Maori of New Zealand; an onion with a 1,000 year
history linking the author’s home and Iceland ; a plant which earned the
name ‘supermarket of the swamps’; the traditional veggie roof gardens of
Norway; clifftop perennial vegetables of Dorset’s Jurassic coast; the
Hampshire perennial vegetable triangle; Scandinavias best kept secret, a
long-lived spinach that climbs; Prince Charles’ Forest Garden, and
inspiring multi-species dishes of the Mediterranean countries.

A thorough description is given of each vegetable, its propagation,
cultivation and uses, and also how to source seed and plants. As many of
the author’s selections are what he calls ‘edimentals’ – edible and
ornamental –*Around the World in 80 Plants *will be of interest to
traditional ornamental gardeners as well as anyone interested in
permaculture, forest gardening, foraging, slow-food, gourmet cooking,
traditional preservation techniques and ethnobotany.