I can’t remember the last time we had a porcini (cep, penny bun) or steinsopp in Norwegian year here, well over 10 years I think!! There are huge amounts for the pickings…and they were all in good condition with almost no insect larvae nor the parasitic fungi (snyltesopp) which makes them inedible.
There were also large amounts of saffron milk caps (matriske) again unusually for the time of year completely free of insect larvae!
Perhaps the warm dry weather was good for the fungi but not the flies!
I had to stop as I was afraid the load would be too much for the bike brakes on the very steep descent home!
Strangely, the most common edible fungi (chantarelle and hedgehog fungus/ kantarell og piggsopp) were almost totally absent!
Now, the job to dry them and return to the woods a couple more times to dry enough for the next porcini year!
Eikeskrubb (Leccinum quercinum / Orange oak bolete) which also grows on aspen :
The haul!
Furumatriske (Lactarius deliciosus), saffron milk cap
Eikeskrubb (Leccinum quercinum / Orange oak bolete) which also grows on aspen!
Eikeskrubb (Leccinum quercinum / Orange oak bolete) which also grows on aspen!
I passed over the brunskrubb also in huge quantities
Tempting :)
Home in the distance…a steep descent awaits with fully laden bike!
I had to take it very carefully down here…past Thomas Thomassen
A productive afternoon in the woods yesterday on the Malvik side of Solemsvåttan with my Swiss helper Julia Albrecht with a good haul of bilberries and the year’s first chantarelles! Yes, I think I live in paradise :)
The fungal haul!
Bilberries / blåbær
Masses of bilberries everywhere
Franskbrødsopp (Albatrellus confluens )
Found this Sorbus in the woods…but what species?
Amanita regalis (brunfluesopp) and Russula spp
Amanita regalis (brunfluesopp)
Bog asphodel / rome
Julia Albrecht :)
The year’s first sighting of yellow gold in the woods!
On Thursday this week we went for a forage locally as I’d heard reports that chantarelles were appearing after the rain….we didn’t see any edible fungi but there were large quantities of bilberries (blåbær), wild raspberries and even a bog where there were unpicked cloudberries, so we transferred our attentions to picking berries!
We started the walk from Fjølstadtrøa, a restored husmannsplass (croft) (we had met the last husmann and his wife back in the 80s!)
The local historical society has restored the buildings and a local school has made a vegetable garden here!
Nice to see broad beans (bondebønner), here with kale..
Catawissa (walking) onion (etasjeløk)
Beetroot (rødbete)
Herbs
Hops
Admiral
Gul korallsopp? (coral fungus)
Gul korallsopp? (coral fungus)
Creeping twinflower (Linnea)
Cowberry (tyttebær)
Cow-wheat seed (marimjelle)
This hoverfly (blomsterflue) fed on my bilberry stained finger!
A nice walk at Vennafjellet just over the border in Selbu kommune on Monday! We started at Svendalstjørna,walked over to the old seter (mountain farm) at Engavollen and back via the top of Faseknipen.
Walked up from Svendalstjørna, seen below here
Yellow water lilies
Molte (cloudberry) were ripe, but not many to be found!
Molte (cloudberry)
Molte (cloudberry)
A common hawker dragonfly patrolling
Heather (lyng) in full flower
:)
On the way down to Engtjørna, the boundary over to Malvik kommune goes through the lake!
Engavollen seter
Engavollen seter
Crowberry / krekling (Empetrum nigrum) growing on the turf roof
Crowberry / krekling (Empetrum nigrum) growing on the turf roof
Crowberry / krekling (Empetrum nigrum)
Crowberry / krekling (Empetrum nigrum) was an important edible berry for Arctic peoples
A club moss
Alpine lady’s mantle (Alchemilla alpina), also on the roof!
Willows on this roof!
Clouds can give interesting effects!
Sitting down for lunch, an Arran Brown (fløyelsesringvinge) was patrolling a spruce tree near us!
…and this common hawker dragonfly landed in the same tree..
…and this common hawker dragonfly landed in the same tree..
My first bilberries of the year (blåbær)
There were a few fungi, including this Russula spp
A few pictures from a great weekend in Jondal at the Hardanger Academy for Peace, Development and Environment
A few pictures of edibles in the garden of the flat we stayed in in Jondal!
Balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus)
Balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus)
An oriental hybrid lily
Campanula
Canna
Hosta
Begonia
Rose
…and the last set of pictures is from a trip to the Folgefonna glacier, only 35 mins to drive from sea level at Jondal to the ski lifts for summer skiing! The pictures are mostly of edible plants seen right next to the ski centre!
ALOHA all! Thanks to Leda Meredith for the introduction, we had a very enjoyable visit today from Sunny Savage, a foraging author from Hawaii. Sunny is author of Wild Food Plants of Hawaii and is doing great things encouraging and helping folks to eat invasive species and is working on an app to help people find 5 Hawaiian invasives! Great idea which could be adapted elsewhere!! We foraged my garden together and you can see here what we created
I’m travelling today towards Northern Ireland where Edimentals is taking part in the BBC Radio 4 Gardener’s Question Time Summer Party at Mount Stewart (one of two visits there this year!). Enclosed is the programme. The lunchtime event with me is a talk (in the Sunk) and in the afternoon I’m doing a walk and talk to forage the garden’s edibles for some gourmet concoction to be prepared by one of NI’s leading chefs.
The main reason for my visit to Bergen was the Saturday course on perennial vegetables for the organisation Bærekraftig Liv (literally Sustainable Living). We had perfect weather for the day which started with a beginners course followed by foraging around the garden of Landås hovedgård (lysthus), a historical building where Edvard Grieg spent much of his youth! The afternoon session was my normal Around the World talk. Bærekraftig Liv have a long term lease here in collaboration with Bergen kommune where the gardens and house will be restored! https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land%C3%A5s_hovedg%C3%A5rd
A great mixed crowd of folk turned up and, yes, I’d love to come back next year!
Perennials can be a partial solution to the problem that Bergen has with the Iberian slug (brunsnegl) which disillusions many new vegetable gardeners in Bergen!
Landås Hovedgård
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind)
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Landås Hovedgård
Felleshage (community garden)
Liv Karin Lund Thomassen introduction to Landås Hovedgård
One of the participants showed me this Hablitzia being sold commercialy locally under its Swedish name, rankespinat
The first veggie food I ate was macaroni cheese and chips at Edwin Jones (now Debenhams) in Southampton, a treat when we Mum took us shopping back in the 60s…
Most years since I’ve followed this tradition on or near my birthday, no chips this year as the potatoes have run out and nowadays the macaroni cheese is mixed with masses of green stuff both from the garden and, yesterday, fiddleheads harvested on the Homla walk. This is more or less the only time in the year I have dessert and the only time I eat sugar…in rhubarb crumble, also with family roots back to the 60s :)
Macaroni green cheese and ground elder (skvallerkål)
Some other random ingredients…blanched Hablitzia
Blanched moss-leaved dandelion
Blanched moss-leaved dandelion
Top left and left to right: Hosta Frances Williams, ramsons (ramsløk), blanched moss-leaved dandelion, blanched lovage aka spring celery (løpstikke eller vårselleri), blanched sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), blanched Hablitzia (stjernemelde), sea kale (strandkål) broccolis and ostrich fern fiddleheads (strutseving)
Ostrich fern fiddleheads (strutseving)
Top left and left to right: Hosta Frances Williams, ramsons (ramsløk), blanched moss-leaved dandelion, blanched lovage aka spring celery (løpstikke eller vårselleri), blanched sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel), blanched Hablitzia (stjernemelde), sea kale (strandkål) broccolis
Rhubarb crumble (early variety from the island Træna)
rhubarb crumble, also with family roots back to the 60s :)
Pictures from this week’s 5 hour (botanist pace) walk along the spectacular Homla canyon, the start about 14 km from home!
Storfossen
Storfossen
Ostrich fern (strutseving) had already come too far in most places, but in the cooler air next to the river and in places where the snow lies late, they were perfect for harvestingth the warm weather, the ostrich fern (strutseving) had already come too far to harvest, but other places on the banks of the river and where snow lies longer
Wood anemones (hvitveis)
Ostrich fern (strutseving) emerging from river spring flood silt deposits
Ostrich fern (strutseving) emerging from river spring flood silt deposits
Ostrich fern (strutseving) emerging from river spring flood silt deposits
A particularly luxuriant patch of ostrich fern
A particularly luxuriant patch of ostrich fern
Wild salad gathered for lunch on the Homla walk this week, including giant bellflower (storklokke), alpine bistort (harerug), Viola spp., red and green leaved sorrel (engsyre), Rumex longifolius, raspberry (bringebær) shoots, wood sorrel (gjøksyre), lady’s mantle (marikåpe), stinging nettle (brennesle), young leaves of Cirsium palustre, coltsfoot (hestehov, don’t use much as it contains alkaloids) and dandelion (løvetann)
Wild salad gathered for lunch on the Homla walk this week, including giant bellflower (storklokke), alpine bistort (harerug), Viola spp., red and green leaved sorrel (engsyre), Rumex longifolius, raspberry (bringebær) shoots, wood sorrel (gjøksyre), lady’s mantle (marikåpe), stinging nettle (brennesle), young leaves of Cirsium palustre, coltsfoot (hestehov, don’t use much as it contains alkaloids) and dandelion (løvetann)
