Hablitzia tamnoides

Unusual vegetable
An edible herbaceous perennial originating from the caucasus that can be eaten raw or cooked. It is a vine that will climb up to 3 metres or more in the summer and can live up to 50 years. The seeds are tiny and sown last February when it was cold, a necessary part of the process, they have taken six months to grow to this size and John’s 3rd attempt to grow from seed, a pesky slug or two came across the tiny plants and munched them off.

John came across the information in a book titled Around the World in 80 plants by Stephen Barstow, an English man living in Norway, this was the man who made a salad in March using over 500 different plants grown on his property without a polytunnel or green house.

When visiting a friend in Cumbria a couple of years ago John spotted the book on his coffee table, both men agreed they would like to meet SB who did hope to visit Mull last June, of course he didn’t but who knows perhaps he will.