Please let me know if you can ID any of the fungi!
Great to be home again after my non-stop tour of Eastern and Mid-West USA. 12 talks and 2 walk and talks complete without any deviations from plan! Thanks to all for making it possible and to the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival and Atlanta Botanical Garden who shared my travel expenses.
However, much to do to put my 3 gardens to bed for the winter!
On Sunday, we went for a walk up to a mountain farm (seter) near to the lake Foldsjøen in Malvik with the main aim to gather alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils (Polygonum viviparum / Persicaria vivipara) to dry for the winter. This is one of the 80 plants in my book and I grow various accessions of this plant also in my garden! See also my post on 25th June: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=22680
You can often find large quantities of this plant in open sheep pasture and dampish meadows. I hadn’t been to this “seter” before and right enough there were large amounts of this plant, although the bulbils were still not fully grown. We walked from Verket, an outdoor museum on the site of Mostadmark Jernverk, the site of an old iron furnace (see https://www.malvik.kommune.no/mostadmark-jernverk.6168342-478994.html) up through the forest past Hulåsen to the seter, returning via Slåttdalen and returning along the side of the lake. We didn’t meet a single person or car all the way! At the end you can also see a number of pictures and films of nature and some fungi we found along the way!
Here’s a short film showing thousands of flowerheads in a damp meadow (the flowers are sterile, the plant almost only multiplying vegetatively by bulbils):
On the 4th day of the Norwegian Seed Savers weekend (6th May 2019), the traditional spring walk along the Homla river and canyon was on the programme with the hope to find ostrich ferns at the right stage to pick. In the cooler parts near the river, it was too early and too late away from the river. Nevertheless, everyone who wanted to picked a few fiddleheads!
It was as usual a magical walk which took some of us 8 hours to complete….as there was so much to see and enjoy!
Thanks to all the participants who also provided pictures: Berit Børte (third time participant), new steering commitee member Bernhard Askedalen, Elin Mar (from Røst), Inger Line Skurdal Ødegård, Meg Anderson and Tina Lambert!
Ostrich Fern Paradise:
On 8th March 2019 I walked along the River Itchen in Hampshire between Shawford and Eastleigh, mostly along the old canal tow path:
…and a video of a large population of Elfin cups (Sarcoscypha coccinea)?
And now some pictures taken on 10th March from the Monks Brook, a stream behind my parents’ house in Chandlers Ford where a lot of foragables were already available (a full two months before our area in Norway!), starting with a video ending with Helleborus foetidus.
Last week, I blogged about a fantastic visit to a wasabi farm on the Izu peninsular in Japan during spring 2016, see
This was close to one of the world’s most amazing road bridges, the Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge, a double spiral bridge finished 37 years ago in 1982, see https://www.dangerousroads.org/asia/japan/895-kawazu-nanadaru-loop-bridge-japan.html
Here’s a short video driving the loops:
Nearby was a shop selling a myriad of wasabi products! Let me know if you can translate any of the signs in the album! At the bottom are a few pictures from a popular nearby walk, the Kawazu Seven Falls.
We did a small hike along the Kawazu Seven Falls trail:
On my last morning in Wicklow, Orlaith took me on a spectacular wild drive over the Wicklow mountains through the Sally Gap pass stopping off to look down on lough Tay, locally called the Guinness lake!
Goldeneye (kvinand) displaying (with great black backed gull /stormåke)
During my stay in Mertola, we did two short walks along the river. The first pictures are from near the town centre, the second group from Canais do Guadiana where we were joined by a local producer of essential oils, who showed us some of the plants they use. There’s a great little video of the area and plants on the producer’s website: http://dalenguadiana.pt
Vitor Menas and Fernando Garcia run the business and Fernando joined us on the walk and showed us around the workshop in the village.
Perennials Resistence in Mertola, Portugal (video and interview) http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=20370
Herdade do Freixo do Meia http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=20042
Freixo de Cima http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=20133
In search of the wild asparagus at Bombeira do Guadiana http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19856
Cactus pads for my last lunch in Mértola http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19658
The Holy Grail Kale and the Janas Ecovillage gardens! http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19949
Edible plants of the Sintra Natural Park http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19746
Mostly edibles at Majoito http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19685
The Ecoaldeias Janas extreme salad http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=19669