Large pinkfeet migration ongoing

It’s been raining all day here, but there’s been good flying conditions for the geese flying here today from their start point in the Netherlands and Belgium!

This was the radar picture over Norway, so it looks like the birds have had good flying conditions from their overwintering area in the Netherlands and Belgium until just before they reached the Trondheimsfjord where I live (where the band of rain is located) 

Official opening of The Edible Garden Permaculture LAND centre

On Sunday 5th May we’ll be having an official opening of the garden as a Permaculture LAND centre 
(see https://www.permaculture.org.uk/land-centres and http://www.permakultur.no/land)!
This is part of a full weekend programme for KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) annual meeting (årsmøte) weekend (the whole program in Norwegian is at the bottom)! Membership: kvann.org!
The full program will follow!
Hope many folks will join us for our celebratory LAND multi-species spring salad and much more!

Download (PDF, 1.2MB)

Edibles in Dunedin Botanics

At long last,  an album of pictures of edible plants spotted in the Dunedin Botanic Garden during my late summer visit on 26th March 2015, as part of a lecture tour of New Zealand. See the photo captions for more information!

Walks along Hampshire’s chalk streams

On 8th March 2019 I walked along the River Itchen in Hampshire between Shawford and Eastleigh, mostly along the old canal tow path:

…and a video of a large population of Elfin cups (Sarcoscypha coccinea)?

And now some pictures taken on 10th March from the Monks Brook, a stream behind my parents’ house in Chandlers Ford where a lot of foragables were already available (a full two months before our area in Norway!), starting with a video ending with Helleborus foetidus.

Snow harvest

It snowed all day yesterday, but it’s unfrozen underneath and spring bulbs like snowdrops (snøklokke), coltsfoot (hestehov), winter aconite (vinterblom), Crocus tommasianus and Hepatica transylvanica are in flower under the snow. Remembering where the edibles are located, I can still harvest food under the snow:

Hablitzia tamnoides, Allium carinatum, Ranunculus ficaria var chrysocephalus (lesser celandine / vårkål), Alliaria petiolata (hedge garlic / løkurt) and (forced inside) dandelions (løvetann) 

Pinkfeet migration

Despite the heavy snow all day, flocks of migrating pinkfooted geese (kortnebbgås) have been passing over all day. Spring is here, much earlier than it used to be! Not easy to see them though in this weather. So far some 1,000 birds have arrived in their staging area (where they prepare for the next stage of the journey to Svalbard) in Levanger just north of here!