I spent 3-4 hours this afternoon weeding the new Allium garden at Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim!
It now seems pretty certain that many plants didn’t make it through the winter, perhaps planted a little too late to establish themselves!
Potted on seedlings of Taraxacum atrata….I thought this was a new (for me) white flowered dandelion, but it turns out this is a synonym of T. pamiricum which I’ve flowered before (picture from 2009 below)
Thank you Marianne Leisner for inviting me to Gartneriet (literally, the plant nursery) to pick and tell about the ingredients in Bygdø Kongsgårds Mangfoldsalat (the Bygdøy Royal Diversity Salad)! Another lovely evening with lovely people grooving with veggies!
I was very impressed by your Allium tuberosum bed!!
I want one!
Alliums
How does Marianne grow such enormous ground elder (skvallerkål)?
I WAS impressed by thsi Allium tuberosum bed!
I WAS impressed by thsi Allium tuberosum bed!
The youngest participant was really interested in edible flowers!
The participants put together this fantastic salad, some 30-40 species
The participants put together this fantastic salad, some 30-40 species
I spent a couple of hours in Muséhagen (the old botanical garden) in the centre of Bergen before taking the train to Oslo on Sunday and spent the time edimentals spotting amongst all the sun-worshippers, a strange experience in a town best known for its rain…
Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel) is a “noxious weed ” (svartelistet), but also one of the best edible introductions to our flora, only invasive as we eat too little of it ;)
Hostas
My favourite formal part of Muséhagen is this bed with Hostas and Gunnera tinctoria from South America, both in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
One of Norway’s tallest Ginkgo trees, but alone it will have a hard job producing ginkgo nuts!
A splendid clump of Allium victorialis (victory onion / seiersløk)
A splendid clump of Allium victorialis (victory onion / seiersløk) towering over Egyptian onion to the left
Camassia cusickii
Camassia cusickii
A large clump of hybrid Trillium
Hemerocallis dumortieri is an early flowering species
A hybrid day lily to the left with much smaller Hemerocallis dumortieri to the right
Marshmallow (legestokkrose)
Asparagus, asparges
Gaultheria shallon
Rudbeckia (a vegetable used by native americans)
Tropaeolum polyphyllum
Darmera peltata
Hosta planted with conifers
An area with Myrrhis odorata, sweet cicely
Invasive claytonia sibirica
Hostas
Hostas
Hostas
Hostas
Pignut / jordnøtt was also growing wild in the garden
The main reason for my visit to Bergen was the Saturday course on perennial vegetables for the organisation Bærekraftig Liv (literally Sustainable Living). We had perfect weather for the day which started with a beginners course followed by foraging around the garden of Landås hovedgård (lysthus), a historical building where Edvard Grieg spent much of his youth! The afternoon session was my normal Around the World talk. Bærekraftig Liv have a long term lease here in collaboration with Bergen kommune where the gardens and house will be restored! https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land%C3%A5s_hovedg%C3%A5rd
A great mixed crowd of folk turned up and, yes, I’d love to come back next year!
Perennials can be a partial solution to the problem that Bergen has with the Iberian slug (brunsnegl) which disillusions many new vegetable gardeners in Bergen!
Landås Hovedgård
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind)
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Landås Hovedgård
Felleshage (community garden)
Liv Karin Lund Thomassen introduction to Landås Hovedgård
One of the participants showed me this Hablitzia being sold commercialy locally under its Swedish name, rankespinat
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway. The area was until just a few years ago spruce forest, but when it was felled, an agreement was struck with the kommune in 2013 for the organisation Bærekraftig Liv (literally, Sustainable Living) to develop the area as a food forest (matskog). I have long wanted to visit, so was happy to finally get to spend a day there with food forest enthusiasts Lars Ove Kvalbein, Benedicte Brun and others during my May 2018 visit to Bergen to give a course for Bærekraftig Liv!
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway.
The path we took up to the food forest was along a seasonal stream bed…..
The grindabygg is a traditional building technique from western Norway
Benedicte gave a tour of this still young food forest (here with my friend David Woodland from Hardanger who it turns out grew up just a few kilometres from me in England!)
Benedicte has done a great job in the food forest and contributed many hours!
A perennial tree kale (tree collard)
North American salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis is an invasive plant in Western Norway and is already growing in the food forest!
Ostrich Fern (strutseving) has been planted!
Preparations for growing shiitake and oyster mushroom
Hosta
Zanthoxylum schinifolium, one of the sources of Sichuan pepper
The lads cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus) harvested from the food forest! It’s a common wild plant in western Norway
Lars Ove Kvalbein cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus)
Pignuts (jordnøtt)
Pignuts (jordnøtt) being roasted
The roasted pignuts were delicious
We didn’t have enough plates, so Hosta leaves were used as wraps for the salad!
A swarm of bees was discovered near to an area with bee hives…
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway.
The grindabygg is a traditional building technique from western Norway
A perennial tree kale (tree collard)
Benedicte gave a tour of this still young food forest (here with my friend David Woodland from Hardanger who it turns out grew up just a few kilometres from me in England!)
Zanthoxylum schinifolium, one of the sources of Sichuan pepper
Benedicte has done a great job in the food forest and contributed many hours!
Ostrich Fern (strutseving) has been planted!
Preparations for growing shiitake and oyster mushroom
North American salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis is an invasive plant in Western Norway and is already growing in the food forest!
Hosta
The lads cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus) harvested from the food forest! It’s a common wild plant in western Norway
Pignuts (jordnøtt)
Lars Ove Kvalbein cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus)
A swarm of bees was discovered near to an area with bee hives…
Pignuts (jordnøtt) being roasted
The roasted pignuts were delicious
We didn’t have enough plates, so Hosta leaves were used as wraps for the salad!
The path we took up to the food forest was along a seasonal stream bed…..
Fast Slow Food: From garden to table in 20 minutes or less…
As related in my book and my talks over the years, some of the best food is in this category and one common way of using wild and garden veggies in the Mediterranean countries is simply to gather a selection of greens, boil and fry in olive oil with garlic and chili, mix with scrambled eggs. Two of the wild foraged species mentioned at the beginning of the Mediterranean chapter are
a) Clematis vitalba (Old man’s beard / Tyskklematis)….must be boiled to detoxify as it’s related to buttercups (smørblomst)
b) Anchusa azurea (large blue alkanet): quote from the book “Anchusa azurea is a perfect perennial edimental with superb azure-blue flowers in summer. Young leaves and flowering shoots of this species and others in the same family have been gathered from the wild in most Mediterranean countries. In Cyprus, for example, they were boiled alone, boiled with beans or fried. Like its annual cousin borage, Borago officinalis, the flowers are an attractive addition to salads or just freeze them in ice-cubes.”
Clematis vitalba (left) and Anchusa azurea
First boiled, then fried with garlic and chili in olive oil
20 minutes after harvest
…and the gourmet version with pink flowered dandelion and Allium humile from China
…and the gourmet version with pink flowered dandelion and Allium humile from China
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
