Broad (fava) bean diversity 2018! This was the first harvest at Væres Venner community garden in Trondheim! This is the only (and original) bean for making falafel and hummus! We should be growing large areas of this bean here in Norway for food security and climate friendly vegan food. It annoys me how little self-sufficient Norway is in particular in vegetarian food when it doesn’t need to be that way!
One of, my favourite culinary times of year…the last two evenings I’ve eaten fresh broad bean falafels accompanied by fresh orange milkcaps / granmatriske (Lactarius deterrimus) and a mixed salad including sour tasting tuberous begonia flowers, various heirloom tomatoes and much more. It doesn’t get much better!
(Norsk tekst finner du nederst: We spent 3 hours this afternoon weeding and starting to extend the KVANN garden at the Væres Venner Community Garden at Ranheim today!
We need more people to help, so please let me know if you’d like to be added to an email list to get a warning if we are planning to work on the garden! It was great to see how the field is now full of pollinators and other benefiicial insects like ladybirds. The pollinators (bees and hoverflies were on wild thistles and hoverflies were very interested in the quinoa which is now in flower (see the video below)
(Norsk: Vi tilbrakte 3 timer i ettermiddag med luking og jeg begynte å utvide KVANNs hage hos Væres Venner Felleshagen på Ranheim i dag!
Vi trenger flere folk til å hjelpe, så vær så snill å gi meg beskjed hvis du vil bli lagt til i en e-postliste for å få en advarsel hvis vi planlegger å jobbe i hagen!)
The KVANN garden is a nursery at the moment and many of the plants such a walnuts, Hazels etc will be planted in different parts of the garden next year!
Quinoa “Stephe” and broad beans
Too little space for all the plants….time to extend…but it was hard work with the dry soil in the heat, so this is as far as I got!
Spent the day with assorted Væres Venner (Friends of Være) weeding the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Saver) gardens. The good news is that almost all the couch grass has been removed from the world garden (using bastard digging and weeding the few that came up again!)
Weeding finished on the temporary bed that will be expanded to become KVANNs Verdenshage (World garden), a circular bed where the straw is with some 80 edible mostly perennials from around the world planted geographically with the centre representing the North Pole!
KVANN’s plant nursery has a number of trees and shrubs, to be eventually spread around the garden, but a few vegetables too
Quinoa “Stephe” with a number of different broad bean (fava) or bondebønner cultivars
Old Norwegian potatoes
Another group (Marina Bakhtina) are working on an insect friendly garden and a so-called Benje’s Hedge (Benjes hekk) has been erected; see https://giy.ie/archive/growing-a-natural-hedge-without-even-planting-it.html
There’s still plenty of space for other folks and projects!
19th October 2014: Broad beans / bondebønner were harvested today and made into falafel with onions, apple, chilis, garlic and golpar (Heracleum persicum / Tromsøpalme spice) with barley flour…
Originally introduced by Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds, who gave them to me during my visit last September and sowed in my garden today! This a large-seeded tall variety originating in Guatemala ! The bright yellow seeds are reputed to contain elevated levels of dopamine, and may have benefits for those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease….
This beautiful black flowered broad bean (fava) / bondebønne appeared in my garden in 2011. I isolated the seed, but sadly lost it and nothing like this has appeared again!
