I’d followed KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) member Per Hofsli on social media for some time for his interest in nut trees and I’d learned that he was even grafting for sale, not the easiest of genera to graft as the process needs warmth. I was therefore pleased to be given a tour of his garden in Asker (Oslo) on 20th August when I was in Oslo for KVANNs herb seminar at Linderud Gård. Although most are still young trees, it was truly impressive to see all the nut trees in his garden including many varieties of walnuts, heartnuts, buartnuts ( ), chestnut, hazel and almonds. However, most impressive was his amazing collection of fig varieties and my visit was perfectly timed to be able to sample some of the best tasting figs I’ve ever eaten, in particular one (Campaniere) that had a rich honey taste. He grows them in large pots and brings them in for the winter as outside they freeze back to the roots and don’t then manage to ripen by the autumn. There were also a number of varieties of aubergine and a wonderful “family” pear tree, to which he had grafted on 15 varieties!!! I came away with a dwarf walnut created by Lars Westergaard: Mini Multiflora #14, grafted by Per (thanks!), a variety I believe I saw when I visited Westergaard’s nursery in 2016: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=6438 I didn’t take many pictures as it was raining a bit. I hope I will be able to revisit in 10 years to see how this place has developed :)
Per and part of the fig collection
The apricots were unfortunately not ripe….
Walnut with galls caused by one of the walnut gall mites, a tiny, sap-sucking insect that causes blister-like swellings on the upper surface of the leaves. They don’t hurt the trees.
A family pear tree on which Per had grafted several varieties.
Almonds
One of the aubergines
Fig tasting, Campaniere is at the bottom and had an incredible taste!
In the middle of July I was at the Åfallet Food Forest Festival in Sweden to give a talk about perennial vegetables (more about that in a separate post). There I met Göran Christiansson of the webshop NötTräd and Nötverket, the Swedish network for everyone who wants to contribute to making nuts a natural part of the Swedish food landscape and transforming the food system! He also has a podcast which was started in March this year and I agreed to do an interview with him on my experience with growing nuts next to the Trondheim Fjord. We sat down in one of the trial forest garden plots at Åfallet on a warm summer day surrounded by hazel trees. You can listen in to the conversation here: https://sites.libsyn.com/571825/stephen-barstow-edimentalscom-in-english
You have to search for the small red tassels that are the female wild hazel (Corylus avellana) flowers that will be the nuts. They’ve probably been there for some time as the male flowers or catkins are almost over in this very mild winter. I’ve read that the wild hazel is a good pollinator for large nut hazel varieties, but there is hardly any overlap in flowering times here.
In connection with my daughter Hazel’s birthday yesterday, she wanted me to make a salad for her and her friends she’d invited for dinner, so no birthday cake, it was a birthday salad with candle, and 78 ingredients was the plan! 78? Well, it was a double celebration as this week was also 40 years since the titles to my house were signed over to us by the previous owner Ragnhild Austvik. I told Hazel it would be a 78th birthday party and didn’t reveal all until we were at the dinner table! She didn’t guess why, believing I’d miscalculated as the combined age with her brother (his birthday is on Monday) would be 79, although on her birthday it was still 78, so it could have been that! So, here’s the over-the-top flowery salad I put together with ingredients list below the pictures (yes, I miscalculated and it turned out to be more than 78…40 more in fact ;))
English: A series of 3 articles written for Birdlife Norway’s magazine “Vår Fuglefauna”
Jeg har bestandig vært opptatt av å dyrke mat på en naturvennlig måte. Som unge vegetarianere i Norge tidlig på 1980-tallet var det livsnødvendig å kunne dyrke egen mat. Men, et av hovedgrunnene til at vi kjøpte nettopp dette stedet i Malvik var at det vokste vill hassel (Corylus avellana) her, et sikkert tegn til et rikt fuglemangfold (det var også 20-30 fuglekasser hengt opp i trærne og bygningene)! Siden starten av Corona-epidemien fikk jeg mye mer tid hjemme og den tiden har jeg brukt til å dokumentere det enorme mangfoldet av andre livsformer som finnes her (har god oversikt over fuglelivet), særlig insekter, som jeg lever sammen med i Den Spiselige Hagen hvor jeg har samlet et tilsvarende mangfold av spiselige planter fra hele verden i en skyggefull skoghage.
Det at jeg hadde blogget en god del om alternativ mat for fuglene som vi kan lett dyrke selv var utgangspunktet for at jeg ble spurt om å skrive en serie artikler om dette til medlemsbladet til Birdlife Norge (tidligere Norsk Ornitologisk Forening). Artiklene ble publisert i 2021/2022 og kan lastes ned nedenfor.
For å lære mer om fuglevennlige planter bli gjerne KVANN medlem (https://kvann.no/bli-med) og meld deg inn i lauget for Insekt- og fuglevennlige planter (gratis for medlemmene) – det blir tilbud på frø av noen av plantene som nevnes i artikkelen!
Jeg har så langt registrert 108 fugle- og 446 virvelløse dyrearter fra og i Den Spiselige Hagen (Naustanbergan i Artsobservasjoner), samt 11 pattedyr…og siden jeg er en integrert del av dette økosystemet et av dem er Homo sapiens
There was a pair of marsh tit (løvmeis) in the garden one day this week and they showed some interest in a nest box. Hoping for first time nesting in the garden of this species! In the video, it can be seen interested in an unopened hazel catkin, which are eaten by other tits.
A new species of fungi discovered growing on an old wild hazel nut in the garden this week, nut disco (Hymenoscyphus fructigenus), not found earlier in Malvik kommune. Thanks to Edel Humstad for the ID.
Last night we made a green pea soup and apart from the Hablitzia (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde), I used perennial vegetables growing in a wild part of the garden. With little or no help from me there’s a bounty of wild edibles in this area under wild hazels (Corylus avellana) and this made for a delicious pea soup with masses of greens. Campanula latifolia is documented as used in spring soups in the 16th century in my area in Norway and Heracleum shoots are also a tradional soup ingredient, in particular Russian borsch now thought of as a beetroot soup was originally made with hogweed shoots.
Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower) and Urtica dioica (stinging nettle)….in a dry shady area under trees, the productivity here is equal to my annual vegetables!
Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower) has almost outcompeted ground elder / skvalelrkål (Aegopodium podograria)
Hablitzia tamnoides in front of the wild greens
Heracleum (hogweed / bjørnekjeks) stems
Ramsons (right) were also used from an increasing patch naturalised in the shade of the north side of the house!
Everything was much brighter today after a very wet Wednesday and wet heavy snow was weighing all the branches down and I even had to avoid hanging branches to get out of the front door. Wonderful to have some snow at last, but it sadly won’t last… Below are pictures of hazel in flower (the branches bent so far that the catkins are pointing upwards) and my yew tree bent so far that it touches the ground.
