Engelsk tekst nederst
I løpet av 17.-19. juli var jeg glad for å kunne returnere gjestfriheten gitt av KVANNs søsterorganisasjon Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) under mine 2 turer dit i 2017 og januar 2020 rett før COVID-en rammet (se https://www.edimentals .com/blog/?s=arche+noah)
Dette var i forbindelse med et Erasmus pluss utdanningsprogram der Arche Noah-utdanningen besøker ulike steder i Europa for å lære mer om flerårige grønnsaker og skogshager! Vi besøkte hver av mine 3 hager: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Felleshagen og Løkhagen Chicago ved NTNU Ringve Botaniske Hagen.
Vi fikk selskap av Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen og Judit Fehér fra KVANNs styre (bilde). Ursula Taborsky fra Arche Noah er nest til venstre på bildet fra min spiselige (skogs)hage.
English: During 17th-19th July I was happy to be able to return the hospitality given by KVANN’s sister organisation Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) during my 2 trips there in 2017 and January 2020 just before COVID hit (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=arche+noah)
This was in connection with an Erasmus plus education program in which Arche Noah education are visiting various places in Europe to learn more about perennial vegetables and forest gardening! We visited each of my 3 gardens: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Community Garden and the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden.
We were joined by Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen and Judit Fehér from KVANN’s board (picture). Ursula Taborsky from Arche Noah is second left in the picture from my Edible (Forest) Garden.
I didn’t know if I could make a salad just with ingredients you can buy in the supermarket (but all home grown of course!), but last week I DID IT when I had a family visit!!
The picture of me looking cool and conventional with my favourite grandson Johannes was taken by favourite son Robin (yes, I have one of each)
During early 2019, I sowed seed of black raspberry, Rubus occidentalis Ex-Black Hawk. The seed were harvested from some plants in my garden received originally as seed from Seed Savers Exchange in 2003. They germinated around 26th May 2021 and I planted about 20 quite close together with the thought of later moving them to a permanent place. That never happened and the plants grew large and started producing last year.
To my surprise I discovered that some of the berries, presumably from one of the plants, were very different and reminiscent of the hybrid with red raspberry (Rubus idaeus) “Glencoe”.
About ‘Glen Coe’: “this is the result of a cross-breeding between Rubus idaeus ‘Glen Prosen’ – a local Scottish variety with red fruits – and R. occidentalis ‘Munger’, a black-fruited variety from North America that was introduced in 1897 and extensively cultivated on more than 600 hectares in Oregon. This hybrid was developed by the Scottish Crops Research Institute, an agricultural research centre near Dundee (now integrated into the James Hutton Institute). Introduced to the market in 1989, ‘Glen Coe’ still surprises with the unique colour of its fruits, which is intermediate between its two parents.”
The first time a siskin (grønnsisik) decided to pay me a visit, found yesterday inside the house (a young bird)! 
Toad lilies (Tricyrtis sp.) are great edientomentals from the Far East; i.e. both food for us to eat (the edi bit), eye food (the mental bit ;) ) and food for the pollinators like bumble bees (the ento bit).
I’ve been meaning to try to research this genus properly for many years ever since I ate the young shoots 10 years ago (it tasted mild and good). I’ve tried 10+ species over the years, but only the early flowering species thrive (Tricyrtis latifolia is I think the most successful of the two). Bumble bees love them too as can be seen in the video below!
Below the pictures is an overview of how different species Tricyrtis are used in Japan. It indicates that the flowers can also be used at least in moderation for decoration, so I must give it a go!
Tricyrtis in the kitchen
All I have so far is that 6 or 7 species are listed in my comprehensive Japanese foraging book (in Japanese): Wild Food Lexicon (Japan) and this is what it says (there are no warnings of possible toxicity and it encourages the reader to get and grow a couple of the species):
Tricyrtis latifolia (Tamagawa hototogisu)
Eat young shoots. You can eat other types of Tricyrtis so don’t worry if you make a mistake. Rest assured. You can pick it even if the stems are long, you can pick the soft young shoots until they bloom.
Boil in hot water with a pinch of salt, then rinse in cold water. In boiled food, soup, tempura…
Tricyrtis macropoda
It can be eaten like Tamagawa hototogisu, but the ones with a lot of hairs have an inferior taste.
Tricyrtis macrantha
Boiled soup. For tempura etc. It has a crisp texture. Boil briefly, soak in cold water, boil, cut into small pieces and season with mustard. The young shoots are the most flavourful amongst the hototogisu.
Tricyrtis macranthopsis
Seedlings for cultivation are on the market. You can grow it and use it as food.
Around May, pick young shoots that grow diagonally. Even those with long stems can be eaten by picking the soft part at the tip of the stem.
Tricyrtis perfoliata
Young shoots are “hard”? in quality. Floating the flowers in the soup and enclosing them in jelly will make them beautiful. Get it, grow it and taste it!!
The last time I saw one of these in the garden was in 1998: poplar hawk moth / ospesvermer. Today, one turned up in my light trap, and I’m sure anyone passing would have heard a loud WOW coming from the woods! More information and a picture of the 1998 moth here.
It was reluctant to take to the wing and needed some encouragement as can be seen in the videos and you can pick it out flying off through the woods…
The Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim, Norway contains over 100 Allium species and over 400 different accessions including a collection of old Norwegian onions which I collected across the country with support from the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre and the Norwegian Agricultural Authority. You can safely eat all Alliums and most species have in the past been wild foraged. A few do have an unpleasant taste, but most are good to eat including some of the best-known ornamental onions, some of the best edimentals (combined food and beauty) and edi-ento-mentals: also a very popular genus for pollinators like bumble bees. Members of KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) in Norway can order most of the Alliums grown in the garden each autumn (please support us by becoming a member at https://kvann.no/bli-med)
These are the 40 main Alliums I talk about, in order of appearance: Allium cernuum (nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium cernuum “Alan Kapuler”(nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium canadense Allium fistulosum (rooftop onion; takløk from the Gudbrandsdalen valley) a) From Søre Kleivmellomsæter, Mysusæter in Rondane at 885m asl b) From Nordre Geitsida, Sel municipality Allium cyathophorum var. cyathophorum Allium hymenorhizum Allium insubricum Allium validum (Pacific or swamp onion from California) Allium scorodoprasum (sand leek; bendelløk – garlic derives from old norse geirlauk meaning spear onion as demonstrated) Allium tricoccum (ramps) Allium caeruleum “Bulbilliferous form” Allium wallichii (Sherpa or Nepal onion) Allium senescens (Siberian onion) Allium fistulosum (Welsh onion; pipeløk) from Skedsmokorset, Akershus Allium sativum (hardneck / serpent garlic; slangehvitløk) Allium victorialis “Cantabrica” from northern Spain (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium victorialis “Røst, Norway” from the island in the Lofoten Islands in Norway (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium x proliferum “Catawissa onion” (topset, Egyptian or walking onions; luftløk, etasjeløk) Allium pskemense (tower onion; tårnløk) Allium pskemense x fistulosum “Wietse’s onion” Allium ochotense from Japan (earlier Allium victorialis) Allium carolinianum Allium moly (golden garlic, lily leek; gull-løk) Allium caesium Allium schoenoprasum (chives; gressløk) – deadheaded Allium douglasii (Douglas’ onion; Douglasløk) Allium cernuum “Dwarf White” (nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium prattii x ovalifolium? (Chinese hybrid) Allium galanthum Allium rotundum Allium schoenoprasum subsp. sibiricum “Hokkaido” – later flowering than other chives Allium ovalifolium var. leuconeurum Allium flavum subsp. flavum var. minus (small yellow onion; doggløk) Allium ramosum Allium stipitatum (Persian shallots; Persisk sjalott) Allium maximowiczii var shibutsuense f. album Allium victorialis “Landegode, Nordland, Norway” (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium nutans “Lena” (Siberian nodding onion; Sibirsk nikkeløk) Allum lenkoranicum
This must qualify as the weirdest organism I’ve found in my garden and likely to give me nightmares, so you are warned! A snail and bird parasite that develops in the snail’s tentacles, mimicking a caterpillar by pulsating. I had never heard of such a thing and wondered what the hell was going on, some kind of weird snail sex or maybe some psychedelic mushroom had got into the dinner! The snail is an amber snail / storravsnegl (Succinea putris).
An explanation of the part of the life cycle of the green-banded broodsac or Leucochloridium paradoxum I had witnessed can be read below the video and pictures.
The following is copied from https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Leucochloridium_paradoxum
“Two visible changes in the snail occur as a result of the accumulation of sporocysts. First, the snail’s tentacles enlarge and pulse in vivid colors. Secondly, the instinctively photophobic snail becomes photophylic and climbs to the tops of trees and grasses. This conspicuous sight looks like a caterpillar to passing birds. The birds swoop down and consume the snail and unknowingly inoculate themselves with Leucochloridium paradoxum. The worm continues its development within the bird’s gut and ultimately ends up in the rectum where its eggs are flushed out with waste. Another snail consumes the excreted egg and the cycle continues”
Rachel Carsons Den tause våren er her i Malvik, iallefall på jordene rundt Malvik sentrum og Vikhammer, men jeg har ikke kunne lese noe om dette i avisene. For meg som følge tett med naturen og særlig fuglene våre er det dramatisk! For første gang siden jeg flyttet til Malvik i 1981 (43 år) er et av de vakreste sangene HELT BORTE fra lydbildet. Det dreier seg om storspoven, en stor fjære- og dyrkamark tilknyttet fugleart (se videoen helt nederst for å forstå hva som er borte):
Dette er en fugl jeg gleder meg til å høre hver vår når den dukker opp vanligvis i første uke i april og ofte hver dag frem til begynnelsen av juli hører jeg den nede i Malvikbukta eller trekkende over huset mot Vikhammer. Den etterhvert eneste par i Malvik kommunen har letet etter mat både på dyrkamark og i fjæra, nedenfor huset mitt i Malvikbukta og på Vikhammer. I år var ankomsten rekord tidlig og jeg hørte sangen allerede 29. mars, men det er blitt helt stille siden, noe som gir meg stor natursorg. Hva som er årsaken til dette vet jeg ikke sikkert, men nedbygging av dyrkamark på Vikhammer, økt ferdsel i fjæra der og motorveiutbyggingen ved Leistad jordene der det mistenkes at fuglene har hekket i en årrekke har sikkert alle bidratt. Jeg har vært urolig for at dette kunne skje i flere år. Vi mistet en annen fugl tilknyttet dyrkamark for ca 8 år siden – vipe, en art som er nå regnet som kritisk truet i Norge . Ifjor 8. august oppdaget jeg noe merkelig i at en ung storspove satt på et hustak nedenfor huset mitt i Malvik sentrum mens foreldrene letet etter mat på mudderflatene nedenfor (video)! Forhåpentligvis blir ikke dette den siste storspove-unger i Malvik….
Jeg savner stort lyden av storspove og vipe! Jeg savner også sangen av låvesvalen over hagen min, en art som nå er helt bort som hekkefugl fra Malvik til Hundhamaran siden det ikke lenger er hekkeplasser å oppdrive for arten, stæren har også blitt en sjeldenhet og gulspurv er kommet på rødlista som sårbar. Nedbygging av dyrkamark på Vikhammer kan også truer det største overnattingsted for kaiene (en liten kråkefugl) slik jeg har skrevet om tidligere. Fellesnevnen for alle disse artene er at de er tilknyttet dyrkamark og er avhengig av vår hjelp!
KONKLUSJONEN: DEN TAUSE VÅREN HAR ALLEREDE KOMMET TIL MALVIK…
Til slutt en liten minne av storspove sang tatt fra huset mitt i Malvik like før soloppgang 20. april 2020 der man kan høre en rekke andre fuglearter i hagen like før soloppgang! Jeg håper at politikerene i Malvik gjør alt mulig for at dette er noe fremtidig generasjoner også vil kunne glede seg til!