Edimentals.com reaches 1,000 posts!!

I’ve just noticed that in the 3-4 years since I started this Edimentals web site / blog I’ve now (this week) reached 1,000 posts!
Below is a screen shot of the most viewed posts! Let me know if its not readable!
The most viewed is my crazy seed trade list from 2000 when I offered over 1,000 different seeds (by no means not all collected in my garden). This has had almost 15,000 views. It is followed by the recipe for my 2001 Megasalad with 382 ingredients, with 11,700 views! Yes, I wrote down how you at home could make this, in detail :) I’ve no idea why the 3rd most viewed post comes up so high, but it’s from my June 2014 visit at Holma Forest Garden when work got underway for Barstows Lund (copse)..
From the vaults: my Edible and Useful Plant seed list from 2000: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=524
A little salad recipe: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=206
Holma Forest Garden: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=138
edimentals_top_posts

More “northern” lights

Some more pretty lights seen from the garden yesterday…

P1810076

The moon had on some make-up last night, preparing for the super blue blood moon in two days time!

P1810077

P1810067

When I saw this light on the fjord, I thought that somebody was being beamed down to earth and would be in for a wet surprise…

P1810064

…there were two of them…

 

 

Bird count weekend

Over the weekend of the national garden bird count (hagefugltelling) the temperature was stable between -1 and +1C. I registered 23 species in the garden, 7 of which sang or drummed, here they are with maximum numbers of each:
Siskin (grønnsisik) 18
Brambling (bjørkefink) 22
Nuthatch (spettmeis) 1
Fieldfare (gråtrost) 6
Bullfinch (dompap) 6
Greenfinch (grønnfink) 7
Robin (rødstrupe) 1
Great Tit (kjøttmeis) 2
Redpoll (gråsisik) 26
Blue Tit (blåmeis) 2
Coal Tit (svartmeis) 1
Great spotted wooodpecker (flaggspett) 2
Sparrowhawk (spurvehauk) 1
House sparrow (gråspurv) 10
Chaffinch (bokfink) 1
Magpie (skjære) 3
Hooded crow (kråke) 1
Yellowhammer (gulspurv) 6
Blackbird (svarttrost) 2
Feral pigeon (bydue) 1
Jackdaw (kaie) 30
Hawfinch (kjernebiter) 1
Goldfinch (stillits) 2

Siskin singing (grønnsisik)

Siskin (grønnsisik) singing in a birch tree as they fed…

Siskin (grønnsisik) singing in a birch tree as they fed…and you can hear a woodpecker drumming in the garden (my first ever in the garden) about 3/4 of the way through

…and here are the pair of great spotted woodpeckers which have chosen to set up home in the garden on the neighbour’s bird feeder tree…I didn’t notice the second bird arriving until I saw the film!

Siskin (grønnsisik) singing in a birch tree as they fed…

Barstow’s Lund near Lund

I was just sent this picture from my visit to Holma Forest Garden in Southern Sweden <3 (https://www.facebook.com/SkogstradgardensVanner) on 1st September 2017….. I am very happy to be greeting the sign of Barstow’s Lund for the very first time….Lund means “Copse or small wood” in Swedish and they have planted as many as possible of the plants in my book in this part of this the oldest forest garden in Sweden! Holma is next to a small place with the wonderful name Höör which isn’t far from the city of Lund, so this is Barstow’s Lund near Lund….
For English speakers Lund is pronounced “Loond” as in loony ;)

27399089_10215091801997859_1469023005_o (1)

The complete indexed Extreme Salad Man videos

Many thanks to Ane Mari Aakernes (<3) for putting this play list of Youtube videos she and Berit Børte (<3) made of me last year. All these videos have been shown before but if you click on “Show More” under each video you will now see a list of plant time links or index to each film. If you click on the time tag, it takes you straight to the part of the film I’m talking about that plant! Names are given both in Norwegian, English and Latin!!
First up in the play list is the 6 part film series “Stephen’s salad” where we wander around the garden in mid-May 2017 and pick many of the perennials, in prime condition for picking, which end up in an Extreme salad with 211 different ingredients!
The last 3 films, which are similarly tagged to make it easy for you to find a particular plant, are from the 3 hour Around the World in 80 plants talk at the Hurdal Ecovillage in Norway on 29th January 2017 (in English), a year ago on Monday!
PLEASE SHARE!!
In the picture of the production team:
From left to right: Extreme salad ingredients (all 211 of them), Ane Mari AakernesBerit Børte and ESM with the Trondheimsfjord beyond! 
P1730041P1730045

P1730022 P1730017

Siskins

Every day there’s something different birdwise to see in the garden. This morning, a flock of some 20 siskins (grønnsisik) were looking for crumbs under the feeder, but they were soon gone again! (together with bramblings / bjørkefink and redpolls / gråsisik in the videos)

The VanDusen Botanical Gardens in Vancouver BC

After visiting the UBC botanical garden on 4th April 2018, I bussed across town to Vancouver’s better known more formal VanDusen botanical garden, although it’s a younger garden (from 1970) against UBC which was established in 1916. The rain started when I arrived and I didn’t have that much time. Nevertheless, here are a few impressions!

Hydrophyllum (water leaf / Indian salad) is one of the 80 in my book!

Inundated with perennial seed!

Yesterday, I sowed some 110 varieties of perennial edibles….and I had about 20 left to sow….I thought I was finished for now! Guess what was in the post box!! Another 60 that need sowing now! It’s never happened before that SRGC (Scottish Rock Garden Club) and NARGS (North American Rock Garden Society) seed arrived together!
Did I mention that the Rock Garden seed exchanges are the best places to source unusual edible plants :)
P1810050
P1810052
P1810053