Category Archives: Community Garden

Garden visits with Fosen students

It’s always a pleasure to spend time with students from the Fosen Folk High School from the other side of the fjord. Despite the dreadful weather, we visited all 3 of my sites – the onion garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens followed by the Væres Venners Community Garden and, finally, my own garden The Edible Garden (this is the first time I’ve taken a group to all 3 sites!).
Those that took part were two of the “lines”: The Self-sufficiency line and the  The Organic Farming line (small scale).
The Organic Farming line were only on the first two visits, so the picture only shows the Self-sufficiency folk!

KVANN’s World Garden

At the Væres Venner community garden on the outskirts of Trondheim at Ranheim in an area we hope will remain a green belt, I have been working to create what we call Verdenshagen (The World Garden) in collaboration with KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) and Schübelers nettverk. This is a network of gardens throughout Norway which is being launched in June 2021 in honour of Fredrik Christian Schübeler (1815-1892) was a botanist and professor at the University in Christiania (now Oslo) and director of the Botanical Gardens for nearly 30 years from 1863. He established a network of gardens throughout Norway, often in collaboration with prestegård (rectory gardens) to test out new plants of economical importance (both ornamentals and edibles). Our new network is also planned centred around rectory gardens and other gardens to demonstrate and inspire to grow new plants but also to conserve old varieties of food plants and ornamentals. See more at https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=https://kvann.no/schubeler
The World Garden is basically a 12 m diameter circle where the centre represents the North Pole and houses a garden of Arctic food plants. Largely perennial vegetables are being planted geographically around the circle, currently some 80 plants, many of which can be read about inspired by my own book Around the World in 80 plants (see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=30). The garden is surrounded by over 100 old and new fruit, berry and nut trees and another demonstration garden for annual crops.
The intention is to add pictures to the album below throughout the year from the World Garden. Our focus is also in creating and improving the habitat at Være for other wildlife, so there will also be pictures of insects, birds and other creatures. 

Wagtail at the North Pole

North Pole? Yesterday I worked for the first time this year at the Væres Venner Community Garden where KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) and I are involved. When I arrived there was a pair of white wagtails (linerle) at the North Pole of the World Garden (I’ve planted mainly perennial vegetables geographically on a 12m diameter garden with the centre representing the north pole, marked by a pile of rocks) :)

Otherwise, honey bees were active on a group of dwarf daffodils (påskeliljer), significantly earlier than other Narcissus:

First serious dig of the year preparing an area for potatoes, removing the last of the couch grass (kveke) roots (I hope) and planted about 30 Sarpo potatoes (Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Tominia). Also sowed broad beans, planted onion sets and caraway root (karve).  
Overwintering of the 100+ fruit, berry and nut trees seems to be very good!

KVANN på Væres Venner 28. mai 2019

Jeg har nå utvidet KVANNs hage på Væres Venner Felleshagen (Trondheim) og igår plantet opp følgende:
1) Årets virusrensete miniknoller av norske potet: Tysk Blå, Hroar’s Dege, Shetland Black, Gjernes Potet, Kerr’s Pink Blå, Beate, Truls, Ivar, Raude fra Skjåk og Brage
2) Frøplanter av Carolus poteten (true seed); resistent sort
3) Potet under halm (delvis mot kveke): 15 sorter inkl. fjorårets miniknoller
4) Et nytt bed (snudd opp ned for hånd mot kveke) med diverse flerårige kales (flatbladet grønnkål) fra frø: Daubenton x Pentland Brig / Nero di Toscana grex; Pentland Brig (OP), Asturian Tree Kale, Cottager’s Kale (OP) og Daubenton x late purple flowering broccoli (min krysning, OP)

KVANN’s Annual Meeting Weekend: Day 3 visit to Væres Venner

Here are a few pictures from our Sunday afternoon visit to the Community Garden at Væres Venner where KVANN are establishing both a so-called Vegetable Sanctuary for old and new vegetables, nut trees, fruit and various other useful plants. We are also developing a so-called World Garden (Verdenshagen). It was a work day in the garden for the members and our group where given the background to the garden by Sølvi Kvam and  Marina Görtz who is developing a biodiversity garden for the bees and much more and featuring a garden of old Norwegian garden perennials.
KVANN’s Fruktlaug (Fruit group) brought  a selection of old apple trees to be planted in the garden and Eirik Lillebøe Wiken is seen in some of the pictures informing about the different trees and grafting techniques!
Thanks to Sølvi for some of the pictures.

Chance meeting with the founder of Good Neighbor Gardens in San Diego!

A chance meeting on the train from Oslo to Trondheim yesterday with Mia Vaughnes who is project coordinator and founder of Good Neighbor Gardens in San Diego ! Despite our very different climates we had plenty to talk about during the last two hours of the journey from Røros and Trondheim and she recognised several of the plants in my book including dandelion, a favourite of Afro-Americans she told me..she joked that the building of railways in the US was fuelled by the dandelion :)
Mia’s Norwegian friend had visited my garden and recognised me :)

Væres Venner Community Garden 29th August 2018

I worked a couple of hours extending KVANNs garden at Væres Venner community garden in Trondheim this week…I have some 50 perennials waiting for a temporary place until next year. I also cut down the vegetation in the rest of KVANNs area in preparation to cover with the thick paper donated by the Ranheim Paper&Board factory and straw from a neighbouring farmer!
The quinoa is approaching maturity and I harvested some more broad beans (bondebønner)! It seems that the soil is fertile (no compost or other fertiliser was added)
See the video:

Talking in a swimming pool: Neubad and Neugarten

On Thursday 5th April 2018, I arrived to give a talk at a place called Neubad in Lucerne! I had no idea that I would be talking from the deep end of a swimming pool ;)
Neubad, formerly a swimming pool, is now a thriving alternative cultural centre! Across the road I also visited Neugarten, a small community garden.
Thanks to Francesca Blachnik and Sven for inviting me and showing me around!

Væres Venner update; 10th August 2018

I spent a couple of hours working at the Væres Venner Community Garden (Felleshage) yesterday and here are a series of photos showing progress!
If you’d like to get involved with your own plot or helping me with the KVANN World Garden (Verdenshage) and/or KVANN Vegetable Sanctuary (Nyttevekstreservat) please let me know! I’ll be definitely needing help from next year as the areas to maintain get bigger!
Norsk: Ta kontakt om du vil hjelpe meg med Verdenshagen og KVANNs Nyttevekstreservat, evt. om du vil ha din egen parsell!

Weeding at Være

Spent the day with assorted Væres Venner (Friends of Være) weeding the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Saver) gardens. The good news is that almost all the couch grass has been removed from the world garden (using bastard digging and weeding the few that came up again!)