Category Archives: Garden tour

Planter i Hurdal prestegårdshagen

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.

Knut Langeland was here!

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!!

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Kerstin’s polyculture gardens!

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!

Utrecht Edimentals

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 post will show pictures of the Allium border which is new this year!

City farm and Wolfgang Palme

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/

Arche Noah’s Show Gardens

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!

Alton

I was very pleased to be invited to give a talk organised by the Curtis Museum in Alton, Hampshire, UK, not far from where I grew up in Eastleigh, Hants.

In my book I introduce the Hampshire towns of Alresford (watercress), Selborne (Gilbert White and sea kale) and Alton as the “Hampshire perennial vegetable triangle” or the UK hotspot of perennial vegetable domestication. Alton is included as the home of botanist William Curtis, who was Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London in the 1770s. He was also a friend of Gilbert White! He wrote a pamphlet, ‘Directions for the culture of the Crambe maritima or Sea Kale, for the use of the Table’ in 1799 to bolster efforts in introducing it as a market vegetable.
See the album of pictures from a wander around Alton with Sheila John of the Curtis museum, edimentals tour of the Allen Gallery garden and later talk there! See the album below!
Other related posts:

Directions for the culture of Sea Kale (1799) http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=9772

The Hampshire Perennial Vegetable Triangle http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=3879

Lecture at the Hillier Gardens  http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1281

Hampshire’s Watercress Line  http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=335