Hairy Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta

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Hairy Bittercress

Hairy Bittercress (with an oak leaf for scale) in Earlham Cemetery, Norwich

One of the first edible plants you’ll find at the beginning of the year is Hairy Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta.

Hairy Bittercress is a small, short lived member of the cabbage family, Brassicaceae. It is related to Lady’s Smock (Cuckoo Flower, Cardamine pratensis) and resembles  a much smaller and more subtle version with white rather than pale pink flowers. At this time of year it consists of a basal rosette of stalked, pinnate leaflets, then in spring a flowering stem arises from the centre of the rosette and bears the flowers.

The flowers are followed by thin fruit capsules known as siliquae (singular siliqua), which split open and fling the seeds some distance from the parent plant. For this reason, Hairy Bittercress can be quite invasive, particularly in damp, recently disturbed soil. If you buy a pot-grown plant from a nursery or garden centre you may find it comes with a free gift, in the form of a Hairy Bittercress plant growing on the surface of the compost. It grows in my back garden in shady borders and in some of my plant pots.

But don’t despair – Hairy Bittercress is rather good to eat, so you may be able to browse it into submission. Promising recipes include Hairy Bittercress and Roasted Beetroot Salad, Hairy Bittercress with Smoked Trout and various others. Or you can nibble on the leaves while on a walk or out gardening, if you’re sure the area it’s growing in is dog free. The leaves are slightly hot (a bit like Watercress or Land Cress) and slightly bitter. They go well with Chickweed (Stellaria media), another edible weed that can be used in salads.

Japanese Wineberry, Rubus phoenicolasius

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Japanese Wineberry

Japanese Wineberry

One of my discoveries last year was the Japanese Wineberry, Rubus phoenicolasius, a beautiful and delicious relative of the Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus species aggregate) and the Raspberry (Rubus idaeus), a separate species rather than a hybrid (like Tayberry and Loganberry).

The Japanese Wineberry is a sprawling sub-shrub that can be trained in the manner of blackberries or allowed to sprawl along the floor of a forest garden. It is deciduous and in winter its attractive red stems with orange-red bristles brighten up the garden. But it is the orange-red fruit that are its best feature, produced in early August inside a protective, papery calyx. They are sweet and taste a bit like a raspberry with a hint of grape. It’s difficult to describe but very lovely.

Japanese Wineberry in winter

Japanese Wineberry in winter, Grapes Hill Community Garden

I bought three plants last year from D. T. Brown for Grapes Hill Community Garden and they did well beneath one of the ash trees where we’ve allowed them to sprawl. They produced fruit in the first year and the stems reached as far a vigorous patch of Moroccan Mint. It will root into the soil but that shouldn’t be a problem, as we want it to sprawl about the place. If you train your Japanese Wineberries up wires you can keep them from rooting, or you can propagate them from rooted pieces – it’s up to you. Only one plant is necessary as they’re self-fertile and there are no special named varieties.

Japanese Wineberries are perennials and they fruit on the previous year’s stems. Old canes that have borne fruit can be pruned out but it’s a shame to do this before late in the winter, as they look so good.

We ate our Japanese Wineberries straight from the plant but you can use them in most berry recipes, such as trifles or summer pudding, if you have enough of them.

Read more on Japanese Wineberries here:

Read more about Autumn Raspberries in the blog entry I  wrote earlier this year called ‘In praise of Autumn Raspberries‘.

Fruit Tree Pruning Workshop

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Bob showing us how to prune a young apple tree

Bob showing us how to prune a young apple tree

Today I went on a Fruit Tree Pruning Workshop at Morley St. Botolph, near Attleborough in South Norfolk, along with other Norfolk Master Gardeners.

It was great to be outdoors a cold but sunny day in such pleasant surroundings, amongst local varieties of apple such as “Captain Palmer” and “Baxter’s Pearmain”.

The course was organised by the East of England apples and Orchards Project (EEAOP), a charity that works to protect East Anglia’s orchards and local varieties of apple, pear, plum and cherry in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Our two very knowledgeable instructors, Bob and Kevin, showed us how to prune young and older apple trees and we were able to have plenty of hands on experience.

We all had an interesting and enjoyable day and I can thoroughly recommend the course.