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.
Documentation of yet another amazing day during last week’s Perennialen III in Hardanger!! Pictures taken on a fantastic 6-7 hour round trip from Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Aasdal Wiken’s house to their shieling (støl or seter in Norwegian). We took our time botanising on the way up, passing through different types of forest on the way up, from alder (or), ash (ask), planted spruce (gran), lime (lind), elm (alm), hazel (hassel), aspen (osp) and birch (bjørk) at the highest levels. Lower down, old apple trees witnessed that these steep slopes had at one time been worked for fruit production, no easy matter….
Eirik and Hege are planning to rejuvenate and replant some of this area and have planted a multispecies forest garden above and below the house, probably one of the most dramatic forest gardens in the world (more later).
A picture of Alvastien Telste taken last year showing the house at the bottom centre and the walk to the ridge at the top and beyond!
Starting our walk up the mountain, I took this picture of a farm on the other side of the fjord and, next picture, a shieling (seter / støl) is visible on the ridge at the top!
Shieling (seter / støl)
The house at Alvastien Telste
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Eirik and Hege’s tree house (I stayed there on my first visit – Perennialen I)
Under the spruce, a ground cover of young ash seedlings…the future of which is uncertain as Ash dieback has arrived here…
Impaties noli-tangere (Touch me not balsam / springfrø) was common on damper soils
Ostrich fern (strutseving) with enchanters nightshade (trollurt)
Cirsium arvense on a small open field halfway up the hill
Campanula
Late flowering Silene dioica (red campion /rød jonsokblom)
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Alder tongue gall (Taphrina alni)
Mycelis muralis
Galium odoratum (woodruff / myske)
Rock to which an old cable lift was attached
Fox dung with beetle cases?
Old apple tree half way up
We saw one small population of hedge garlic (løkurt)
Wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Clambering wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Hazel (hassel)
More ostrich fern (strutseving)
There were many amazing trees, many of which were pollarded (for animal feed in the past)
Old barn
Pyrola spp.
Woodruff (myske)
The Troll Elm!
Eirik showed us an old cross on the rock marking the edge of his property
This ostrich fern had over 30 fertile fronds in the centre!!
I was surpised to find an area of Geranium lucidum
Woodruff (myske)
Steep slopes
Galium spp.
…the rain came down near the top
Fantastic views of the fjord on the way up!
Frosted bracken?
Rut pool used by red deer stags!
There weren’t many edible fungi apart from one good patch of chantarelles in the birch zone
Picking chantarelles
…and, finally, after 4 hours we reached the hut!
Foxglove (revebjelle) within the protection of this old wall
