I received my PDC after completing the course mainly taught by Jan Bang at my house in Malvik during 3 long weekends in 2017. My project report was about how I designed my own garden using permaculture design principles (without having read about them). The report can be downloaded below:
I was saddened to see in yesterday’s Adressa (local paper) that Trøndelags grand old asparagus farmer has died ☹
As part of my project for the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre documenting and collecting old Norwegian vegetables, I received a tip about a retired farmer, Jan Lein, who had supposedly grown asparagus commercially on Tautra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautra), a historic island which I can just see from my house on the other side of the Trondheimsfjorden. The fact that the island is surrounded by relatively warm water in winter makes for a mild climate and early spring. The island and surrounding area is known as Trondheim’s vegetable garden!
I called Lein and agreed to meet him at his house on 17th October 2010. I met a really nice man who was proud of his pioneering work with asparagus on Tautra which he believed started in the early 1960s. He told me that he even grew organically with seaweed as fertiliser and he grew white asparagus by mounding the plants with earth. In his house, there were a number of pictures on the walls of his vegetables, including asparagus! The plants themselves derived from seed bought from Leuthens Seed Catalogue in Trondheim. He sold on the market in Trondheim for a number of years until his local production was outcompeted by imported asparagus ☹ Her grew about 12-13 different vegetables at that time!
Jan showed me this plant nearby which was one of the original plants
RIP Jan Lein, the northernmost Asparagus grower in the world?
The pictures below were photographed on his wall:
The article that opened my eyes to the importance of conserving our vegetable diversity was 37 years ago, written by Lawrence D Hills, Director of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) in the UK. This article was in the first newsletter that I received having recently joined the HDRA. Not much has changed in the intervening years, except it was the oil company Shell that was the “bad guy”. This is well worth a read for anyone interested in food and the history (now and then) of the fight to save our seeds! We are now 37 years on, we in KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) setting up Vegetable Sanctuaries here in Norway!
I had become a member of HDRA following a “chance” encounter on a train north to Edinburgh where I was studying. I was travelling with a bike as was a guy called Dave du Feu. Dave was and still is heavily involved in cycle campaigning. On that journey he told me of the Edinburgh Cycle Campaign, Spokes and introduced me to organic gardening and the HDRA, both of which I joined!
At the apple moon coring and cutting apples is a must..processed a couple of hundred apples today, now drying over the wood stove and in the oven. It’s a it more urgent than normal as -8C when I finally managed to harvest them was a bit too much and they won’t be able to be stored long this year (all have brownish blotches on the outside), a bit like the supermoon picture I just took, see below ;)
It’s about as like winter England as it gets here this morning, grey and drizzling….so nice to have a flock of 17 goldfinches (stillits) brightening up the day and lots of other birds too!
Hawfinch (kjernebiter)
Robin (rødstrupe) with brambling (bjørkefink)
There was also a flock of 100 waxwings feeding in the garden, nuthatches and a treecreeper…Malvik is bird paradise at this time of year!
It seems as though it’s a good life being a botanist. It was my second day at work today and it ended at 2:30 in the afternoon with bubbly and double helix clipping ;)
Accessions go back as far as Bishop Gunnerus in the 1760s.
Introduction Tommy Prestø with a series of slides about how the reconstruction of the herbarium happened
Cutting the double helix to open the herbarium needed two pairs of scissors, of course!
Tommy then showed examples of what can be found in the herbarium. Here is huldrestry (Usnea longissima) which can reach several metres long and was the original Xmas decoration: http://www2.artsdatabanken.no/faktaark/Faktaark136.pdf
Scopolia carniolica, a poisonous plant, found on Lade in Trondheim by Tommy, a garden escape
A specimen collected on Sverdrup’s Fram expedition in 1901!
Below are a series of pictures of my favourite potatoes which I grew until 2012-2013 when blight made it difficult to grow varieties with little resistence:
Blå (blue) Kongo (left) and Kampion
King Edward, Blå Kongo and Kampion
King Edward, Blå Kongo and Kampion
See next picture for IDs
Same as the last picture but slightly rearranged
Kampion has roundish tubers, deep eyes and the skin is dark purple. The flesh has a dark purple ring about 5-10mm under the skin. Otherwise the flesh is yellowish.
19 different potatoes cooked for my daughter’s birthday in 2012 (see the next picture for IDs)
19 different potatoes cooked for my daughter’s birthday in 2012
I contributed this quiche for the Thanksgiving dinner in Hurdal, you might be able to see the word “Takk” (Thanks) written in seeds; T – alpine bistort / harerug bulbils (brown) and AKK – dark poppy seeds; with 100% coarse whole grain emmer wheat / naked barley / rye pastry, with swiss chard, chicory, spring onions, onion, garlic, chantarelle, chili, blue cheese, 5 tomatoes, Begonia and common mallow flowers +++
Wonderful Thanksgiving dip from last night’s festivities here in Hurdal…modelled on a Pinus cembra (Swiss pine / cembrafuru) in the Prestegårdshagen (rectory garden)
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
