On 17th June 2024 I had a visit from Mihaela Tsarchinsk and Philip Varionov from the Green School Village and Permaculture Association of Bulgaria. We’d met previously at the European Permaculture Convergence in Bulgaria 10 years previously (she was the organizer). The purpose of the visit was to film my Permaculture LAND centre, The Edible Garden in Malvik. as part of a series of films of LAND centres in Norway, to inspire the establishment of a LAND network in Bulgaria. We visited all 3 gardens as they are all connected:We started at the Onion Garden Chicago at the NTNU Ringve Botanical Gardens, the Væres Venners community garden and last but not least The Edible Garden. Elin Tyse of Permaculture Association of Norway joined us. If you’ve got a bit of time to spare please join me on the tour which can now be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcCheUzMddQ WHAT IS LAND? There are now 5 videos available from different LAND centres across Norway made on the same trip: Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Alvastien Telste; Robin Leeber and Holt Gård; Camilla Fauske and Nordre Holt Gård and Anne-Marit Skogly’s Hvaler Gjestehage at https://pab.greenschoolvillage.org/land-videos
Here are Elin, Mihaela and Philip in Trondheim during the visit:
A great evening at the Resilience Hub in Portland, Maine after a tour of Aaron Parker’s Edgewood Nursery where I’m staying! Possibly the best stocked edible perennial nursery that I’ve visited! More on this when I return!
Aaron was one of the first I sent seed of Hablitzia to in North America early in 2009, after Jonathan Bates (Eric Toensmeier’s partner at Holyoke). Hablitzia is now a best seller at the nursery and Aaron told me is also grown commercially in Maine, particularly valuable due to the early spring harvest! Another person I sent seed to in 2009, Greg Martin was also there last night!
Thanks also to Aaron for setting up my tour of New England!
Aaron Parker’s contribution to the pre-talk potluck, with a little picking help from yours truly
Aaron’s flyer for our walk and talk on Saturday at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston!
The Resilience Hub venue in Portland, Maine!
Aaron introducing me!
Hablitzia tamnoides, a best seller at Edgewood Nursery, 10 years after I sent Aaron seed :)
It was a great evening last night in Holyoke, Massachusetts last night with a great group of knowledgeable permaculture folk! I was also on a tour of Eric’s place Paradise Lot…..WOW!! Much more of that when I’m home!
The first picture shows the great Eric Toensmeier introducing me :)
Erik Toensmeier’s introduction
A good crowd, some 30-40 people
Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) have followed me on this trip, from those given to me by 3 guys from Ohio at Mountain Gardens to harvesting fresh at Eric Toensmeier’s place
This is Sven who has a Danish mother
Afterwards we went to the legendary Tripple Brook Farm nursery run by Steve Briar, the big permaculture inspirer in this area and a thoroughly nice guy too (more on all the plants we saw here later too!)
Grand Opening of The Edible Garden Permaculture LAND Centre
(Thanks to Berit Børte, Kjell Hødnebø, Lone Dybdal, Elin Mar, Bell Batta Torheim, Inger Line Skurdal Ødegård and Margaret M. Anderson for the pictures )
Sunday 5th May was a cold showery day here in Malvik and the 3rd day of KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) annual meeting weekend in Trondheim and Malvik. This was also the day of the official opening of my garden as a Permaculture LAND centre, which was celebrated by a primula ribbon cutting ceremony and the LAND multi-species salad (how many ingredients? See below!). Meg had decorated the gate for the occasion, now a permanent feature:
25 participants from all over Norway met in the garden at 10:30. Due to the weather, we moved inside where I gave an introduction to how the garden had developed into a permaculture Forest Garden despite the fact that I knew nothing of permaculture principles! The rain eased off, so we moved outside for a walk and talk around the garden with focus on the plants. The album below shows some of the plants we talked about:
Lily White and blanched wild sea kale (strandkål)
The Legendary Moss-leaved Dandelion!
Hogweed has self-sown and is co-existing happily with some of my Hablitzias!
One of my Victory onions (seiersløk)
My collection of perennial kales, including my 6 year old Daubenton cross with Early sprouting broccoli producing masses of small broccolis! broccoli ee
Blanched Udo
My 16 year old Chinese walnut (Juglans cathayensis)
Ramsons (ramsløk)
In the most Forest Garden-like part of the garden!
Perennial kales
What’s happening here?
I had got up at 6 am to pick the ingredients for the multi-species salad we made for lunch (all 146 ingredients) to celebrate the garden’s LAND status!
LAND: Learning And Network Demonstration network – a network of permaculture sites. Sites are set up to show permaculture in practice to visitors and volunteers in a safe, accessible and inspiring way. There are a number of requirements to receive LAND certification, one of which was that I had to have a PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) which I took in 2017, sharing the teaching with Jan Bang (yes, I taught myself the plants part of the course!)
Before lunch, we had the official LAND opening ceremony for the Edible Garden, introduced by Eirik Lillebøe Wiken
of the Norwegian Permaculture Association,
The ribbon had been expertly made by Meg Anderson from flower shoots of Primula hybrids (cowslip, primrose, oxlip / marianøkleblom, kusymre, hagenøkleblom) :-)
David and Eirik presented me with two Sweet Chestnut trees and two cider apples. Thanks guys!
There was then a joint effort in my kitchen to put the salad together:
On Sunday 5th May we’ll be having an official opening of the garden as a Permaculture LAND centre
(see https://www.permaculture.org.uk/land-centres and http://www.permakultur.no/land)!
This is part of a full weekend programme for KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) annual meeting (årsmøte) weekend (the whole program in Norwegian is at the bottom)! Membership: kvann.org!
The full program will follow!
Hope many folks will join us for our celebratory LAND multi-species spring salad and much more!
Continuing my tour of Wicklow gardens which Orlaith Murphy had arranged for me! After a great lunch at Wendy Nairn’s house I was unprepared for the amazing garden that awaited me next: Kim and Angus Tyner’s Honeyoak garden! WOW! Kim is a wonderful plantswoman and Angus is equally passionate about wildlife, in particular the incredible diversity of moths in Wicklow and won an award for his work on registering wildlife diversity (http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/record-biodiversity/distinguished-recorders/distinguished-recorder-2013). He also runs his own local weather station! Observation!
I arrived 20 years after Kim and Angus took over the land! They had their priorities right right from the start and they started their vegetable patch before building the house! Today, the couple are almost sufficient in vegetables and fruit and there are two polytunnels in addition to the large wild looking diverse veggie garden which integrates a number of perennials and herbs. For me, the garden could have been inspired by permaculture as many of its techniques have been employed. Kim hand digs, uses mulches, saves seed, the house is powered by solar panels and a wood-fired range, and as much as possible is sourced locally. They also have hens, bees and a cow, so no longer totally vegetarian as they were for 20 years (doing it yourself is clearly very important here!). The garden is still evolving with new beds being planted, nut trees and many edimentals in the ornamental beds. There is diversity everywhere, this is clearly a fantastic oasis for wildlife and the large pond they created has even been visited by an otter. It was a dull wet day, so I hope my pictures do justice to this inspirational garden! Oh and I was very “habby” to see one of my babies in the garden, the Caucasian spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides) :)
See more at
Finally, a post from my 3 days non-stop tour of Wicklow gardens, thanks to Orlaith Murphy. The first stop was Suzie Cahn’s Carraig Dulra Permaculture Farm. The abundance developing here on this hillside site which most would probably be categorized as marginal land reminded me of Mandy Barber‘s Incredible Edible site on previous sheep pasture in Devon!
It’s been a hard year due to the very unusual drought since April until recently. Nevertheless, the deep rooting collection of heirloom apples had produced well! We were there on a blustery day after Storm Ali had battered Ireland that night!
It’s only taken me two years to blog about the garden at Teeny Weeny Farm, a permaculture inspired market garden in the teeny village of Dyke in Morayshire in North East Scotland, not far from Findhorn!
Today FB told me my visit was already two years ago…so I decided to do something about it. The garden was relatively young when I visited but packed with interesting plants intermingled with plants being grown by Kirsty Reid for her cut flower business (many are edimentals!). I was told that her partner permaculturist Chris Johnstone was in charge of the fruit trees and berry bushes!
I received my PDC after completing the course mainly taught by Jan Bang at my house in Malvik during 3 long weekends in 2017. My project report was about how I designed my own garden using permaculture design principles (without having read about them). The report can be downloaded below:
Pictures from the Norwegian Permaculture Association’s Annual Meeting in Trondheim in June 2011 including design of the new Permabed at Svartlamoen and visit to the Edible Garden in Malvik!
The annual meeting was held at Svartlamoen (Remida)
Design of the new permagarden at Svarlamoen!
Salad of the day had 106 different plants, 76% of which were perennials….
Allium detail from the day’s salad with Allium fistulosum and Douglas’ Onion (Allium douglasii), which has a narrow distribution straddling the border of Washington and Oregon in the US!
Mildrid and Jan Bang!
Birthday girl Benedicte Kihle! I remember making her a little 25 species salad on her 25th birthday!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
where I gave an introduction to how the garden had developed into a permaculture Forest Garden despite the fact that I knew nothing of permaculture principles! The rain eased off, so we moved outside for a walk and talk around the garden with focus on the plants. The album below shows some of the plants we talked about:
salad we made for lunch (all 146 ingredients) to celebrate the garden’s LAND status!
