Two month early spring foragables at 63.5N

It was one of the mildest December / January periods here since records began in the 1800s, no snow at sea level and no snow forecast, 3-4 cm of froszen soil at the surface and that’s it. Temperatures are currently like early April and early April foragables are now available!

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Dandelion crowns (løvetann)
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Lesser celandine (vårkål – the Norwegian name means spring greens!), edible until flowers appear
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Lesser celandine (vårkål – the Norwegian name means spring greens!), edible until flowers appear
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Hedge mustard (løkurt / Alliaria petiolata) with Oxalis acetosella (wood sorrel / gjøksyre)
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Primula veris (cowslip / hagenøkleblom)

 

Kosmorama Film (and Food) Festival

Join me at Trondheim’s Kosmorama Film Festival’s Gourmet Cinema on Thursday March 9th at 1600! You will see a special screening of Michael Pollan’s  documentary “In Defense of Food”, experience among other things a multi-species dish showing off the incredible abundance of food available to us in Trøndelag, even early in March. The food will be a collaboration between myself, gourmet restaurant Credo in Trondheim (Heidi Bjerkan) and the organic farm they work with, Skjølberg Søndre (Carl Erik Nielsen Østlund and Elin Östlund). There will also be a Food Talk after the film between us 3 (Heidi, Carl Erik and myself) together with producer and director Michael Schwarz! This will be a fun evening (English)…
In addition, I’m taking part in the so-called Kulinarisk Kino which is the screening of the film NOMA – My Perfect Storm followed by dinner at Credo, which I hope will include a very special Nodic perennial vegetable served for the first time in a restaurant in Norway :)

Around the world in 80 plant video from Hurdal

Presenting the entire 3 hour Around the World in 80 plants talk (in English for the first time), which was live streamed yesterday from Kjøkkenhagen in Hurdal Ecovillage, Norway across the world wide web . Links to the 3 parts, so far only on Facebook here:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMSyt7qqGE

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIlkhwQ-t48

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxBwHzygpw

Some 100 vegetable fanatics had found their way to Hurdal for this “sell out” event. A fantastic international crowd of knowledgeable folks of all ages! Thanks specially to Berit Børte who arranged and promoted the event and to Ane Mari Aakernes for filming!! I’ll be back!!
Thanks also to the board of the newly established Norwegian Seed Savers organisation who had a successful steering committee meeting without me in parallel with my talk…you’ll see them at the end of Part 3!

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The vegetable crowd!

 

Jicama-ahipa à la Henry quinoa

One of the culinary highlights of the year is the annual Jicama (hee-ka-ma) meal….if you’ve never eaten yam beans or Jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus), you haven’t lived!
I grow this subtropical vegetable in my office, which only gets sunlight for maximum 1 hour a day which isn’t optimal conditions (they are usually grown in open fields), but being a climber originates in forests, so it tolerates shade. I grew it’s brother on-climbing Ahipa (Pachyrhizus ahipa) beside it, but that species didn’t produce much (perhaps it’s more sensitive to light?). I also didn’t think the taste was as good.  Both species died down at the end of the year and I harvested the tubers in early January!
Jicama tubers are best eaten raw and are crispy and a little sweet. Being one of the lost crops of the Incas, much more popular in the Americas than in Europe, I served them sliced with a cooked quinoa mix – mixed home grown Quinoa and black-grained Henry quinoa from Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus), flavoured with chilis and lemony sanshō seeds (Zanthoxylum piperitum or Japanese pepper).
NB! Both species, Ahipa and Jicama are normally started from seed which I haven’t succeeded in growing myself!
Day Two: I didn’t eat it all yesterday, I needed a bit more, so I cooked up a third species quinoa, Fat Hen quinoa (Meldestokk quinoa), from the seed of one plant of Fat Hen or Lamb’s Quarters (Chenopodium album). It was added to yesterday’s to give a Three species quinoa and jicama salad (two pictures added)

The svedjerug story

https://vimeo.com/124598269
Follow the link above for a good video in English where Johan Swärd, winner of the Norwegian Plant Heritage prize,  tells the story of Svedjerug (literally Slash and Burn Rye), an old variety which was rescued when a few seeds  were found between the floorboards on an old farm in Finnskogen, Norway before being grown out at the Hamar Domkirkeodden Urtehagen (Herb garden at the Hamar Cathedral ruins; see a picture of one of the plants growing there in 1988: https://no.wikisource.org/wiki/Svedjebruk#/media/File:Ryesod.JPG).  Johan got his seeds from there and has done great work in popularising it (I can now even buy flour and grain in one of the better supermarkets in Trondheim):
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It’s a very tall rye (over 2m) traditionally sown in summer and harvested the year after as part of the slash and burn agriculture (spruce forest) introduced by the Forest Finns (Skogfinner) to parts of Norway and Sweden. Johan tells how as many as 100 straws can in optimal conditions be produced from a single seed and up to 100 grains in each ear, an amazing total of 10,000 grains from a single plant! He also explains why it is important not only to store old varieties like Svedjerug in gene banks like Svalbard, but also to continue to grow them and select them for changing conditions.
Seed of Svedjerug has been offered in our Norwegian Seed Savers Yearbook (norwegianseedsavers.no), coming out in February, another good reason to support our work!

Below are two pictures taken during a workshop Johan gave at the Permaculture Festival in Hurdal in 2013!

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Svedjerug grows this high!!


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Mini tour of Canada

Thanks to my long-term “virtual” friend, vegetable and fertilizer innovator extraodinaire Michel Lachaume, I have been invited by well-known Québécois farmer and author Jean-Martin Fortier to hold a seminar at the farm he manages in Hemmingford, Quebec: permaculture-inspired  la Ferme des Quatres-temps for leading chefs in the area! This will probably be on 11th April!

You can read more about Jean-Martin here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Martin_Fortier

I’m going to take advantage of this amazing opportunity to do a little mini-tour of Canada, do a bit of teaching, learning and experience early spring edibles in another part of the world in nature and gardens! Here’s my rough tentative itinerary
Arrive Vancouver 28th March
29th March – 4th April: Salt Spring Island – Victoria –  Vancouver
(5th – 6th April) Halifax, NS (uncertain)
7th – 12th (Montreal – Quebec – Ottawa area) with 11th at the farm!
13th Toronto (Botanical garden?)
13th Evening flight back to Norway!

An ornithological sensation: Red-breasted flycatcher in Malvik!

The most unexpected bird to appear in my garden was an adult male red-breasted flycatcher (dvergfluesnapper) on 25th May 1995, found unfortunately dead on the door step :(
This is still the only sighting inland in the old Sør-Trøndelag county and the only spring sighting in Trøndelag!
I must admit that I thought it was a robin (rødstrupe)…it was my wife Eileen that said “that’s no robin” :)

Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden