The first evening of KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) weekend event in Trondheim and Malvik, we visited KVANN’s first “nyttevekstreservat” (inspired by Lawrence Hills’ proposal for vegetable sanctuaries across Europe as a reaction to the loss of our vegetable diverity in 1979!) at Væres Venner Felleshage (a new communiy garden in Trondheim). KVANN have already started work on a Verdenshage (World Garden) and another area currently being used as a holding bed for a future diversity garden, including walnut, hazel, sea buckthorn and other fruit trees to be planted elsewhere..
Afterwards, Sølvi Kvam took us to nearby Presthus Gård, a farm which has until recently been threatened by nearby housing developments. It will now be developed with many activities and KVANN are also welcome to make suggestions!
Back in the pre-Facebook days, I remember there was a forum for unusual nut trees and the Norwegian monkey puzzle trees were considered to be the most hardy and I remember receiving a lot of requests from folk wanting seed from our provenience. I had to disappoint them as they weren’t easy to come by……but I did finally get a few seed via a contact from the botanical garden in Bergen who told me that a friend of hers had actually climbed a tree and harvested nuts!!!! Was her friend a monkey? The tree was located in Os, just south of Bergen. They germinated in spring 2007 and I attempted to overwinter outside in a plastic greenhouse open at the top and with a leaf mulch around the roots. I’d heard rumours that larger trees sold from a local nursery for an exorbitant price had survived (never confirmed for my area where winter temperatures can go down to -20C). They survived until mid-March 2018, when I took the picture, but it didn’t make it through a subsequent very cold period ☹ I didn’t try again.
Mid-March 2018 in a roofless cold frame in my garden
A minimum of about -15C seems to be about the temperature limit here and this limits the area they can be grown to a narrow strip outermost along almost the entire Norwegian coast it turns out. One of the biggest surprises in my gardening life was to discover a monkey puzzle growing in Skavberg nursery not far from the arctic city of Tromsø close to 70°N!! Owner Bjørn Thon was also growing Maori carrots (Aciphylla spp.) from New Zealand and many other plants I’d never seen before in Norway. Bjørn has been a long-term collaborator of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden and had been on collection trips to South America. His monkey puzzle had actually been from nuts bought on the market at Puerto Montt in Chile rather than Norwegian trees. The botanical garden, located in a more exposed site than the nursery, also tried but failed, the young plants dying after a few years.
Bjørn Thon and monkey puzzle at Skavberg nursery on 4th June 2009
Monkey puzzle at Skavberg nursery on 4th June 2009 with several other plants from the southern hemisphere
Arve Elvebakk of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden proudly showing off his monkey puzzle which had overwintered. The seed was from a tree in western Norway
Arve Elvebakk of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden proudly showing off his monkey puzzle which had overwintered. The seed was from a tree in western Norway
Location of Skavberg
I also have a Brazilian monkey puzzle (Paraná pine) overwintered in my cold cellar without lights at about 3-4C and bring it up as a Xmas tree for a couple of weeks 😊 See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=15467
Day 3 of the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) meet was at the Ringve Botanical Garden Open Day in Trondheim. The day started early as I drove one of the participants to the station in Trondheim and then spent a couple of hours collecting some of the ingredients for a multi-species salad. Including plants collected on a walk, talk and forage for KVANN members, we managed 111 ingredients in the salad! Thanks to all who helped make it a very successful and fun weekend!
Up early to another wonderful view
Coffee break at Ringve planning my walk and forage
Andrew and Meg working at the Ringve Botanical Gardens :)
Tijana Gajic weeding at the Ringve botanical gardens – we found some Chenopodium album (fat hen / meldestokk), picked for the salad!
Weeding at the Ringve botanical gardens – we found some Chenopodium album (fat hen / meldestokk), picked for the salad!
Sampling Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely) flowers and young seeds for the salad in the Renaissance Garden…more about the Renaissance Garden which has 123 plants that were documented grown in Trondheim in the 1690s in the following link including a salad I made on the opening of the garden some years ago! Poisonous Veratrum (False Hellebore / Nyserot) in the foreground was discussed as a confusion species to edible Hostas!
Bad boy Barstow?….but I did have permission to harvest from the garden’s collections :)
Bad boy Barstow?….but I did have permission to harvest from the garden’s collections :)
Rosa moyesii in full flower (mandarinrose), you can see the flowers in the final salad!
Eirik and Kjell admiring Rosa moyesii in full flower (mandarinrose)
Magnolia acuminata
The final salad put together by KVANN members was shown on our stand before taste samples were offered to the public! Children were eager to taste the flowers! With Hemerocallis, Allium ursinum, Fuchsia, Rosa moyesii, asparagus, Hosta flower shoots and leaves, violets, dandelion etc.
Pictures from Saturday’s 5 km (almost 4 hours with all the stops) walk along the Homla river canyon from Storfossen (this area’s second highest waterfall) to the sea at Hommelvik! As usual, a memorable trip!
We were joined for the weekend by Amandine Faury from France, a new student of Agroecology at Ås, on her way to a hiking holiday in Lofoten!
Kidney vetch (fjellsyre) is found along the river
Another mountain plant, not previously registered this low down in Malvik was found by the waterfall: Thalictrum alpinum
Very little water in the river!
Ostrich fern
Ostrich fern
Ostrich fern
Cicerbita alpina
Mountain queen (fjelldronning)
Campanula latifolia (eaten for lunch!)
Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and the giant ostrich fern!
Kidney vetch (fjellsyre)
Taraxacum eirikii (Eirik proclaimed this one to be a new species) ;)
Eirik Lillebøe Wiken poses at the famous permaveggies course ostrich fern patch!
A demonstration wood for growing quality alder wood for furniture!
Some pictures from Day 2 of the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) meet in Malvik in my Edible Forest Garden :)
As usual, it was a great group!!
Thanks to Margaret M. Meg Anderson for most of the pictures!
The salad gathered by the KVANN members for lunch….including various Alliums (ramsons, chives etc.), two species Lilium, day lilies, the red leaves of red mitsuba and about 40-50 others
There was a little sprinkling of rain in the night again (here on a pot grown Phormium from NZ)! Although everything is still green, another couple of weeks of drought will stress the trees on my shallow soil….but hope is in sight with 4 rainy days forecast next week!
ALOHA all! Thanks to Leda Meredith for the introduction, we had a very enjoyable visit today from Sunny Savage, a foraging author from Hawaii. Sunny is author of Wild Food Plants of Hawaii and is doing great things encouraging and helping folks to eat invasive species and is working on an app to help people find 5 Hawaiian invasives! Great idea which could be adapted elsewhere!! We foraged my garden together and you can see here what we created
