My host Bente Brenna in Valdres Sopp og Nyttevekstforbund rents out rooms on her property right in the middle of Fagernes! Her garden contains a nice collection of Edimentals including Angelia archangelica (kvann)…one of which had the characters of Vossakvann (filled stems)
I stayed in the flat on the ground floor…
Lilies and an unusual looking rhubarb with lovage (løpstikke) and horseradish (pepperrot) behind
I was surprised to find Allium cernuum (Nodding onion / prærieløk) in a bed…until she reminded me that she had been part of the Grønttreff in my garden last summer: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=5149
Hops / humle
Hops / humle
On the way up to the mountain area, Vaset where I would give my talk, we stopped off in this old garden (we had been given permission to visit the garden to look for edimentals after my talk if it was interesting enough…
Hops also here. In Norway, in the year 940 the Frostatingsloven (one of Norway’s oldest laws) made it illegal to steal hops or apples! In the Middle Ages and until the mid-18th century farm owners had to cultivate a certain amount of hops. Hops were primarily used for beer brewing, but also medicinally! For this reason, there are many old hop plants in Norway and it has also naturalised in woods in some places!
Angelica and hops
Stabbur or food store
Arriving at Skikroa (the skiing cafe) where the talk was to be held!
View from skikroa…there are many cabins in this area!
There was a festival the same weekend at Vaset and the local useful plant society had arranged a fungal foray (not much to find though as it had been so dry)
On the way back down to visit another garden with the course participants!
Hosta and ostrich fern (strutseving) near the garden entrance…a new garden with “ornamentals”, vegetables and herbs!
A bracket fungus / kjuke
Day lily / daglilje
Ligularia (The Rocket?), but probably not a good edible variety
Meum athamaticum (spignel meu/ bjørnerot) is a very common hardy herb in Norwegian gardens
Catawissa onion? Etasjeløk…
The garden owner..
Hardnecked garlic introduced by local man Anders Nordrum (see datsja.no) was also growing in Bente’s garden!
Parsnip and pastinakk grow well here
Utilising the space on a rocky slope to growing veggies
View from the garden
..and hops here too!
We popped in to Bente’s CSA (andelsbruk) to collect some veggies for dinner
A polish family were growing broad beans
Before I took the bus to Voss, I did a little cultural walk near the centre of town
Pictures from a great day last Sunday in the company of a great group of permaculture interested folks from Oikos Nord Trøndelag (Oikos = Organic Norway)
We started in my garden in Malvik at 10:30, then travelled north to Johannes Moen’s place just south of Steinkjer, stopping on the way to collect some fertility and for a swim in Leksdalsvatnet! I got home by train at 11:30 pm!
The day started with a tour around my garden
We stopped in Stiklestad on a farm which had been run organically since about 1990 to pick up horse muck for the perennial garden we were to create in the evening!
Not a plant I see often in this area, Stachys palustris was growing on the farm…it has edible tubers..I also found it growing at Hurdal Ecovillage last week and will dig some next time I visit…
On the way north, we stopped off for a swim at the north end of Leksdalsvatnet, one of the best lakes for birds in our area, including little gull (dvergmåke) and great crested grebe (toppdykker/ https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toppdykker), which I spotted from the car!
The swimming area…
I found another rare plant in this area, Alisma plantago-aquatica (vassgro / greater water plantain), when I was out swimming :) I’ve never been convinced to try eating it. This is the entry in Cornucopia II: “The bulb-like bases are eaten after being dried to rid them of their acrid properties”. According to pfaf.org, “the seed is said to promote sterility. By contrast it is also said to promote conception ” ;)
The Alisma locality was on the other side of the water
…and another rare plant, Thalictrum flavum I think, right next to where we sat
…and another rare plant, Thalictrum flavum I think, right next to where we sat
The last stop was at Johannes Moen’s strange house just south of Steinkjer..built by his dad in concrete, it had been designed to have glass sides in which plants could be grown, but it was sadly never completed…Johannes and his brother are living here now and making improvements
Johannes Moen tells us about the house
The original family home
They have been insulating the walls
Scything demonstration on the area we were to convert to a new permaveggie garden!
Participants learning the age old technique of bastard digging which I taught them (I learned this technique back in the 80s from one of John Seymour’s books and dug my own garden by hand in this way! It is surprisingly quick, this area only taking two people about an hour or so…after which we could plant straight away…with this technique, the top spit of soil ends up two spits down an upside down!
Veggie soup and blueberry pie for dinner by a bonfire of birch and “høymole/Northern Dock (Rumex longifolius)” which was also being burned at Hurdal last week ;)
Planting up the bed with plants we’d brought with us from Malvik…
The plants include Hablitizia, Malva moschata, Caraway (Karve), various onions including Allium cernuum, A. scorodoprasum, A.fistulosum, A. schoenoprasum “Major”, Cryptotaenia canadensis, Viola canadensis, Ligularia sachalinensis (by mistake, I thought it was L. fischeri) etc.
Tour to the tower on top of the house!
Views over the surrounding agricultural land
…but forest surrounds one side of the property
I took the train back home from Sparbu
…and a beautiful journey it is along the side of Trondheimsfjord!
Salicornia (marsh samphire/salturt) grow on the mudflats in this picture
Her er min bilde-dokumentasjon av plantene i Prestegårdshagen i Hurdal funnet under to besøk i juli 2017 før evt restaurering / nyplanting kommer i gang!
Se også bildene av nøttekråkene, cembrafuru (det er 4 trær i hagen!) og pinjenøtter her: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=12512
Nøttekråkene også spiser og hamstrer hasselnøtter, som var plantet (levende lysthus) og forvillet!
An album of pictures from registering plants in the garden of the Hurdal rectory.
Google Earth bilde av hagen
Aquilegia vulgaris, akeleie
Digitalis purpurea, revebjelle
Ukjent rose
parthenocissus quinquefolia
Ugressklokke
Thalictrum simplex?
Rosa rugosa, rynkerose langs kanten i øst
Rosa rugosa, rynkerose
Rosa rugosa, mørk
Rosa rugosa rotskudd
Hybridkonvall? (Polygonatum x hybridum) evt. storkonvall
En hassel lyshus er et element vi bør ta vare på; hassel er et viktig treslag i hagen for fuglene, spettmeis, spettene og nøttekråkene; vi håper også å kunne plante noen storfruktete hassel her; bør fornyes
Hasselnøtter; trær finnes også andre steder i hagen, mest sannsynlig forvillet
Firblad
Hosta “Fortunei Albomarginata” og fagerfredløs (Lysimachia punctata)
Hosta “Fortunei Albomarginata”
Telekia speciosa?
Store osp i nord øst
Ospeskudd overalt i gresset og små trær i bedene
Sibirertebusk, Caragana arborescens…et av de mest lovende flerårige ertevekster for kalde strøk; fiksere nitrogen..
Sibirertebusk erter er spiselig, men det er mye arbeid…
Hosta “Fortunei Albomarginata” rundt damen og fontenen; Hosta er spiselige og gode!
Hosta “Fortunei Albomarginata” rundt damen
Hosta “Fortunei Albomarginata”
Broketbladet kornell med broketbladet skvallerkål under!
Broketbladet skvallerkål
Bringebær
Strutseving er tydeligvis plantet inn i bedet nærmest huset…vokser vilt i skogen sør vest for hagen og langs elven
Krossved?
Storkonvall og dukkehus
En musserong
Spisslønn finnes det en del av….skal være nest beste til lønnesirup etter sukkerlønn
To store bjørk i sør vest
Bjørk
Et av de tre epletrærne i den sørvestlige hjørne; bare noen få frukt
Dette området kan bli aktuelt å plante en skogshage og, bakerst, et område med tradisjonelle norske grønnsaker (Plantearven)
Geitrams har invadert sørkanten
Strutseving og mjødurt i skogen sør vest for hagen! Strutseving-skudd har blitt populær om gourmet og sanket mat de siste årene..
Forvilla rips i skogen
Bjørk
Bjørk
Matskogen kunne kanskje plantes i forgrunn
Store osp: masse ospeskudd er klar i skogsbunnen
Osp
Hagerips
Parkeringsplassen like utenfor sør grensen
Enslig rabarbra
Rosenspiraea er invasiv i sør og sør øst
Philadelphus i den sør-østlige hjørne
Solbær
Syren
Ugressklokke
Acer spp.
Lind i den nord-østlig hjørne har de beste spiselige blad…brukes i blandingssalater
Lind
Bedene foran prestegårdene bør plantes opp med kjente Edimentals for å gi en typisk prestegårdslook
Ormerot er en gammel spiselig prydvekst i Norge (Polygonum bistorta)
Bergenia og Hosta; Bergenia er en vanlig teplante i Russland
Hosta skudd selges i de fleste supermarked i Japan på våren. Disse plantene ble flyttet fra slottshagn i Oslo i år!
Stor bjørk og 4 cembrafuru, som nøttekråkene er veldig glad i; prestegårdshagen er et av bare noen få lokaliteter for nøttekråke i dette området: flere bilder kan sees her: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=12512
It was a thrill to suddenly find Knut Langeland on my door step, on the way to Tromsø! We spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting and looking round the garden!! It’s a few years since our paths last crossed, I know him best for his work on old Norwegian gardens and traditional garden plants for the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre and others. He’s written and translated many books, written for gardening and other magazines etc (see https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Langeland).
Perfect timing as I needed to talk to someone about Hurdal’s rectory garden (prestegårdshagen)….more of which later!!
I was blown away by Kerstin Lye’s garden in the Hurdal Ecovillage….a great example of a naturalistic polycultural mix of perennials and annuals and a great inspiration for the other ecovillagers….Kerstin has clearly worked very hard from the start in developing her garden! Thanks for showing me around!
t’s like a dream come true wandering around the Ecovillage at Hurdal with veggies everywhere!
….shame that the houses weren’t built with cellars…but the solution is to build your own root cellar…
Entering Kerstin Lye’s garden and I’m greeted by a familiar face, the climbing spinach from the Caucasus (Hablitzia tamnoides) is happy here in Hurdal..and where Habbies are Happy, I am habby too ;)
Hostas in the shade of the house!
I hadn’t expected such an abundance of vegetables, many perennials when i entered Kerstin’s garden, she had clearly devoted a lot of time to developing her own paradise, complete with a root cellar….
Malva
Allium victorialis
Ligularia fischeri (I had had seed with me when I talked in Hurdal in the winter!)
Utrecht in the Netherlands has one of the great botanical gadens in Europe alongside Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, Gothenburg and Kew Gardens! I had a stopover for a few hours on my way to Austria on 9th June and being relatively close to the airport this was the natural place to go for the edimental fancier! So, here is an album of edible plants I spotted that day! It was good to meet my FB friend Gerard van Buiten in the flesh for the first time too! Another poswill show pictures of the Allium border which is new this year!
The world famous rock garden at Utrecht
Fort Hoofddijk
Near the entrance, the first surprise, Crambe amabilis, a species I’ve never seen before…
Crambe amabilis
Toona sinensis, xiāngchūn, one of the very best leaf vegetables, extensively used in China (often blanched on tree). The leaves have an oniony taste!
One of the great things of travelling and doing these talks is all the fantastic people you meet. Wolfgang Palme (and his lovely wife Angelika who also acted as my interpreter in Schiltern and Vienna) was one of these! I met them first at my talk in Schiltern and I was then very much looking forward to visiting City Farm where they run courses and have developed a diversity garden for children, including several of the perennials in my book! Wolfgang has also written a great looking book on harvesting vegetables during the winter (I include a few sample pages in the album below!)
I look forward to collaborating more in the future!!
See also http://www.cityfarm.wien/
Google Earth image of city farm with the site of the diversity garden and the Kammermeieri, a historical building where my lecture was held!
Wolfgang Palme and myself after my talk at Arche Noah in Schiltern!
Wolfgang had made a special effort of decorating the entrance, stairs and lecture theatre with perennial veggies! Here’s Hosta!
ALlium tuberosum
…and this artichoke on the stairs!
The lecture room!
Kammermeierei
The diversity garden
Wolfgang’s book on winter harvested vegetables!
…includes Silene!
…and this sowing plan for harvesting in the winter months must have been a labour of love!
Mission accomplished! I arrived here in Austria over a week ago! 3 garden tours and two seminars on and I’m now sitting with some porcini pasta and some Austrian beer in Saltzburg before my train back to Vienna and home tomorrow. After 7 hours in Saltzburg, I still haven’t heard any Mozart or The Sound of Music! Thanks to Arche Noah for inviting me
A few pictures from my first three days in Schiltern and Austrian Seed Savers organisation Arche Noah’s amazing show gardens. The main show gardens are in the village of Schiltern in Langenlois, an important wine growing area, with warm, dry summers and relatively mild winters.
I’m doing a series of talks and garden guided tours this week starting here in Schiltern, then Vienna and finally in the Alps near Salzburg!
…and I got to try one of these broadforks! This one had been handmade for Arche Noah!
Seed art at the gate!
The show gardens are in the grounds of an old cloister..
The sales area has a great selection with many perennial edibles including Crithmum, Angelica dahurica etc.!
Purple mitsuba for sale
Angelica dahurica for sale
Caraway (karve) on sale
Hosta on sale as a perennial vegetable!
Toona sinensis
Sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Hablitzia tamnoides
Curly whirly onions, Allium senescens var glaucum
Crithmum maritimum
Rumex scutatus glaucus
Impressive elderberry with my host Claudia and organiser of my tour! Thank you!!
Bee hive
Library
Great outdoors restaurant
Lunch: risotto with an old grain! Did they make a special effort for me?
Isolation tent!
Perennial rye (from, I think, Tim Peters)
Old fruit trees
The countryside and village…
A demonstration of breeding lettuces
Sea Kale on one of two perennial beds
Asphodeline lutea…edible flowers and the tubers were traditionally cooked and eaten with cooked figs by the ancient Greeks and Romans according to Cornucopia II
Scorzonera for seed
Diplotaxis erucoides (wasabi rocket) has an excellent wasabi like taste
Winterkefe pea is one I’ve grown for several years (originally over winter in my old greenhouse). It originates here at Arche Noah
A row of Hablitzia is growing slowly and is maybe not too happy in the heat… shadier place would probably be better!
Catawissa onion (etasjeløk)
Rumex scutatus glauca
Oxyria digyna, mountain sorrel seems to grow well in the lowlands too!
Nice to see Sideritis syriaca, Greek mountain tea in the herb garden
Arch Noah seed packets in the shop
Allium moly (gul-løk) is from the mountains of Spain and is a great edimental
My talk was on Sunday in the cloister buildings
Typha (cattails / dunkjevle) in the courtyard pond! Supermarket of the swamps!
New friends after the talk..chef Johan Reisinger top left, Wolfgang Palme top right (vegetable researcher at the Horticultural College and Research Institute Schönbrunn, Vienna) and his good lady Angelika Palme who did an excellent job at translating!!
On Monday 12th June, I joined an informative tour of the Arche Noah show gardens lead by the head gardener. The tour was for staff and guides.
Nettle water with perennial kale Ewiger kohl (Eeuwige moes)
Chick peas
Broad beans are difficult to grow due to a number of pests and diseases
Millet for a future drier cilmate
I also visited the seed bank…
Humidity instrument for checking that the humidity is low enough for long term storage
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Arche Noah are in the course of changing database (Access) as they have outgrown it!
Wonderful shot from last night’s guided tour around the garden taken by WW (my Wonderful Wwoofer this week) who climbed onto the roof for what could have been mistaken for a drone shot….
See also these Facebook albums:
