BINGN Student Visit to the Edible Garden

It was a busy weekend. On Sunday, a group of 6 third year BINGN students, a three year biodynamic apprenticeship program in the Nordic countries were here for 5 hours. This was part of a one-week seminar close to Trondheim. Part of the education is to visit and learn from many farms and gardens around the Nordic countries. The education is in English and there were students from Hungary, Belgium, Finland, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Sweden! There were many questions and lots of discussion underway. We also provided lunch which, of course, included a salad! I knew a couple of them before as they’d been at the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) Annual Meeting in April!

Visit from Austrian Hobbits!

Saturday was a great day with the garden full of Austrians and to make them feel at home I took them to the steepest parts of my garden 😊. Two years ago, I toured Austria giving talks for the seed saver organisation Arche Noah and the highlight was my visit hosted by Thomas Strubreiter and his wife Michi who have built an amazing ecodwelling / earthship with turf roof.  A series is currently airing on Austrian television showing its construction and a short program “Das-hobbithaus in Salzburg” can be seen here: https://www.servus.com/tv/videos/aa-1vr7rebsw1w12/
It is located high in the mountains above Salzburg surrounded by alpine meadows and beautiful Lake Seewald. I gave a talk in the mountain restaurant Auerhütte, owned by the family and located nearby  http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11483. Thomas and family have dedicated themselves to preserving rare breeds of farm animals, their connection to Arche Noah who also work with rare breeds! See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11499

We talked about them visiting Malvik at some time, but it still came as a surprise to get a FB message from a very good friend of theirs, Birgit, who was living in Jämtland in Sweden, a 4 hour drive from here that Thomas and Michi were visiting and wondered if they could visit! They were here for a few hours on Saturday, a powerful meeting with a lot of laughter! Their turf roof will now have Norwegian roof onions from Gudbrandsdalen!

The Last Garden

After 3 years, I’ve finally finished the last cultivated area in the garden on the steep slope below the pond. The soil is very shallow, so I’ve terraced with bare rock showing between the terraces.
I’ve planted mostly fruit and berry bushes here, but also Xanthoxylum piperitum (Japanese pepper), one of which is thornless. There are also 3 types of Jostaberry, two selections of “Green-berried Blackcurrant”, three golden currants (Ribes aureum), three different black raspberries, two Elaeagnus umbellatus, Gooseberry Xenia and a couple of unknown Ribes spp. from Bo Blomqvist and Knut Poulsen!

The Edible Garden Land Centre Opening

During KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) annual meeting weekend in Trondheim we had an official opening ceremony for my garden, The Edible Garden (Den Spiselige Hagen), as a Permaculture LAND Centre, the 3rd in Norway. The official opening was fun and can be seen in the second video. Owner of Norway’s first LAND centre, Eirik Lillebøe Wiken performs the official opening from ca. 18.00 in the second video!
The videos are mostly in Norwegian!

Del 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQi9MmmrF8
Del 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHANyZXsHMA

See also my earlier post with more pictures and a video: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=21953