These 4 fun-loving specimens of Homo sapiens from Germany, the US, Denmark and Norway, on a secret mission, raided my garden of some giant vegetables this evening and here they are caught in the act! All may eventually be revealed…
And a couple of views of our northern skies at the solstice itself at 12:30 am last night..it clouded over soon after, so no moon to see from here…
No strawberry moons here yet, but at 11 pm this was the view over the fjord. Happy solstice dreams everyone….!!
Somebody once said that solstice greens are the best…I’d add that solstice perennial greens are even better :) Here’s what I used in tonight’s soup: Sea kale(strandkål), Scorzonera (scorsonnerot), Allium senescens, Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), Giant bellflower (storklokke), Sorrel / surblad, Nettle (nesle), Dandelion (løvetann) (all are in my book)…and I almost forgot that there’s chickweed (vassarve) in there too, perennial in that it’s there every year!
On 13th June 2016, I visited National Trust garden Knightshayes Court near Tiverton in Devon, 5 years after I was there last:
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=2505
Many thanks to Sam Brown for showing me around backstage and for posing for scale next to this giant Taunton Deane’s Cottagers Kale, the UK’s only documented old surviving cultivated perennial kale! This one was acccording to Christina Damerel only about 5-6 years old. I was bowled over to see the cottagers kales when I visited 5 years ago, but hadn’t realised how big they could get. The pictures in the link above show plants that weren’t actually that old… The plant in the picture below has a similar stature to the Californian Tree Collards. Sam told me that the woodpigeons graze the higher leaves (you can see this in the picture), but the lower ones are left alone and are also better tasting. The “trunk” was massive!
More pictures from this still great edible walled garden when I get a chance!
Well, not only Mandy’s plot, a group of local people in Ashburton, Devon got together to buy The Field a few years ago to grow vegetables communally! It is truly an inspiration to see how productive what was sheep pasture can actually be!! We need much more of this and I’m imagining the hills around covered in Andean tuber crops in a few years from now rather than sheep!!
It was great to meet you all and a big bonus that Owen and good lady made the journey up from Cornwall to join us!!
More pictures in the album below!
See Mandy’s blog of my visit here: http://www.incrediblevegetables.co.uk/stephen-barstow-visit/
Some additional pictures from the Ringve Edimentals tour taken by Lorna O’Lynn, many from the second of the two tours, several showing the grand tulip flower tasting :)
See also
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=4915
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=2124
A reminder of my mini tour of southern England next week:
12th June 2016: Hellens Garden Festival, UK: Talk based on my book Around the World in 80 plants; see http://visitherefordshire.co.uk/event/hellens-garden-festival-2 (see also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=3609 )
14th June 2016: Wardington Manor, Banbury, UK : workshop on perennial vegetables (http://thelandgardeners.squarespace.com/upcoming-events/#/new-gallery-20)
15th June 2016: Talk and book signing with Southampton’s Groovy Growers at the Art House Gallery, Southampton between 18 and 21 (for tickets: see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/around-the-world-in-80-plants-talk-and-book-signing-with-stephen-barstow-tickets-25435606584?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=esfb&utm-source=fb&utm-term=listing)
The girls made this wonderful sugar free rhubarb pie for our last meal!!! Not as sour as I’d imagined!Just a few weekend shots from the garden and kitchen during a hard working gardening weekend with my helper, Kia from Fosen Folkehøgskole
