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!
Seed art at the gate!
The show gardens are in the grounds of an old cloister..
The sales area has a great selection with many perennial edibles including Crithmum, Angelica dahurica etc.!
Purple mitsuba for sale
Angelica dahurica for sale
Caraway (karve) on sale
Hosta on sale as a perennial vegetable!
Toona sinensis
Sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Hablitzia tamnoides
Curly whirly onions, Allium senescens var glaucum
Crithmum maritimum
Rumex scutatus glaucus
Impressive elderberry with my host Claudia and organiser of my tour! Thank you!!
Bee hive
Library
Great outdoors restaurant
Lunch: risotto with an old grain! Did they make a special effort for me?
Isolation tent!
Perennial rye (from, I think, Tim Peters)
Old fruit trees
The countryside and village…
A demonstration of breeding lettuces
Sea Kale on one of two perennial beds
Asphodeline lutea…edible flowers and the tubers were traditionally cooked and eaten with cooked figs by the ancient Greeks and Romans according to Cornucopia II
Scorzonera for seed
Diplotaxis erucoides (wasabi rocket) has an excellent wasabi like taste
Winterkefe pea is one I’ve grown for several years (originally over winter in my old greenhouse). It originates here at Arche Noah
A row of Hablitzia is growing slowly and is maybe not too happy in the heat… shadier place would probably be better!
Catawissa onion (etasjeløk)
Rumex scutatus glauca
Oxyria digyna, mountain sorrel seems to grow well in the lowlands too!
Nice to see Sideritis syriaca, Greek mountain tea in the herb garden
Arch Noah seed packets in the shop
Allium moly (gul-løk) is from the mountains of Spain and is a great edimental
My talk was on Sunday in the cloister buildings
Typha (cattails / dunkjevle) in the courtyard pond! Supermarket of the swamps!
New friends after the talk..chef Johan Reisinger top left, Wolfgang Palme top right (vegetable researcher at the Horticultural College and Research Institute Schönbrunn, Vienna) and his good lady Angelika Palme who did an excellent job at translating!!
On Monday 12th June, I joined an informative tour of the Arche Noah show gardens lead by the head gardener. The tour was for staff and guides.
Nettle water with perennial kale Ewiger kohl (Eeuwige moes)
Chick peas
Broad beans are difficult to grow due to a number of pests and diseases
Millet for a future drier cilmate
I also visited the seed bank…
Humidity instrument for checking that the humidity is low enough for long term storage
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Arche Noah are in the course of changing database (Access) as they have outgrown it!
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