Tag Archives: Trondheim

Mine Økouka Trøndelag arrangementer 2024

(Note that there will be an extra tour for English speakers on Tuesday)
Det blir en travel uke i neste uke for KVANN Trøndelag med hagevandringer i alle mine 3 hager, hjemme i The Edible Garden, i Væres Venners Felleshagen på Ranheim og i Løkhagen Chicago i Ringve Botaniske Hagen i Trondheim!
VEL MØTT!
15. september, kl 11-15   KVANN (Margaret, Judit og meg) deltar med stand under Natur- og hagefestival på Ringve førstkommende søndag 15. september fra 11-15. Vi skal stå like ved løkhagen og jeg skal også vise rundt i Løkhagen Chicago kl 1400; vi selger som vanlig et mangfold av flerårige grønnsaker med fokus på Allium og særlig natur og pollinator vennlige grønnsaker!
17. september, kl 17   Garden tour at Væres Venners Community Garden at Ranheim for English speakers. THIS IS AN EXTRA TOUR BY REQUEST AND NOT ANNOUNCED YET BY ØKOUKA!  Just turn up if you’d like to join us! For location see https://www.google.com/maps/place/63%C2%B025’56.8%22N+10%C2%B034’08.9%22E/@63.4324562,10.566571,682m
18.september, kl 17   Hagevandring #1 i Den Spiselige Hagen. For flere informasjon og påmelding, gå til https://www.okouka.no/lokale-oekouker/oekouka-troendelag/program/hagevandring-1-i-den-spiselige-hagen
21.september, kl 11   Hagevandring #2 i Den Spiselige Hagen. For flere informasjon og påmelding, gå til https://www.okouka.no/lokale-oekouker/oekouka-troendelag/program/hagevandring-2-i-den-spiselige-hagen/
22. september, kl 14   Hagevandring i Væres Venners Felleshagen på Ranheim. For flere informasjon gå til https://www.okouka.no/lokale-oekouker/oekouka-troendelag/program/hagevandring-i-vaeres-venners-felleshagen/

KVANNs stand på Ringve 2024
KVANNs stand på Ringve 2024
Verdenshagen, Væres Venners Felleshagen sommeren 2023
Hagevandring i Den Spiselige Hagen under Økouka 2022

 

The Onion Garden Chicago on 3rd July 2024

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

Dandelions in pink, white and yellow

16th May 2024: Dandelions in white, pink and (self-sowed) yellow in the Asian part of the World Garden at the Væres Venner Community Garden in Trondheim. I planted both Taraxacum albidum, Taraxacum leucanthum and Taraxacum pseudoroseum in this part of the garden and suspect these are albidum and pseudoroseum but am not sure. Will post separate albums below showing detailed studies of the pink and white one in case anyone has a key to these (there are several white flowered dandelion species in Asia).

Botanical details of what I’m growing as Taraxacum pseudoroseum in the World Garden at the Væres Venner community garden in Trondheim:

Botanical details of what I’m growing as Taraxacum albidum in the World Garden at the Væres Venner community garden in Trondheim. Anyone have a key to this species?

Snow onions

A new video on my youtube channel, the wonderfully exclusive SNOW ONION from the China and the Himalaya https://youtu.be/5mOcQ4aUQVI
We’re back in the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim, Norway on 10th May and the first Allium is in flower. It’s Allium humile, known as the snow onion (snøløk) and one of my favourites and one of the world’s most exclusive foods, known from the ethnobotanical literature to be wild collected both in Kashmir, where it has also been domesticated in kitchen gardens and sold in markets, and in the northernmost Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Before you ask, I have no idea where you can get hold of seed or plants – my plants are sterile (no seed) – an exceptionally rare edimental (the garden website is here https://www.ntnu.edu/museum/the-onion-garden)

PROMOTING PERENNIAL VEGETABLES IN THE SWEDISH FOOD SUPPLY

In recent years, vegetable growers have started to open their eyes to perennial vegetables and quite a few are growing several types. Many more growers are curious and interested, but haven’t got started yet.
Now you can download the report put together by Eva Johansson, Annevi Sjöberg and Johanna Karlén through visits and interviews with growers of perennial vegetables all over the Nordics, including my 3 gardens in Trondheim / Malvik in June.
See https://perennagronsaker.se and click on the link! NB! In Swedish!
(Nice that the Onion Garden Chicago made the front page!)



Organic week in Trøndelag / Økouka i Trøndelag

Last week was National Organic Week (Økouka), a busy week for me as I had two garden tours in my Edible Garden in Malvik (the rain stopped both days just before we started), a walk and talk in the community garden at Væres Venner and a talk at Stammen Cafe & Bar in Trondheim on “Perennial Climate-friendly Food Plants for Urban Areas” talking about 15 advantages of growing perennials! Below you can see pictures from each of the events which were all well attended. I’ve credited the various photographers below. Thanks to all that came along!

1. Garden tour on Wednesday 27th September 

Making the Ø letter for Økouka (picture: Margaret Anderson)

2. Talk at Stammen 

Picture by Margaret Anderson
 

2. Garden tour on Sunday 1st October

Picture by Margaret Anderson

Pictures by Markus Tacker (click on the album pictures for more information):


Pictures by Marit By (click on the album pictures for more information)::

4. Walk and talk in the Væres Venner Community Garden
Pictures by Marit By (the World Garden looking good in its autumn colours with the backdrop of the old ash trees):


 

 

Celebration 40 genera salad

40 years ago this month I came to Norway to find a place for us to live as I was to start work at Institutt for kontinentalsokkelundersøkelser (IKU; Continental Shelf Institute) in Trondheim in October 1981. The flat I found was here in Malvik kommune (Torp). 
To celebrate 40 years in Malvik I made a salad with 40 different genera. The names of the genera are below the pictures!

The 40 genera:

  1. Begonia
  2. Anethum
  3. Salvia
  4. Lactuca
  5. Chrysanthemum
  6. Raphanus
  7. Apium
  8. Coriandrum
  9. Oxalis
  10. Tilia
  11. Tropaeolum
  12. Hablitzia
  13. Hosta
  14. Stellaria
  15. Alliaria
  16. Phyteuma
  17. Melissa
  18. Malva
  19. Lavatera
  20. Allium
  21. Lunaria
  22. Arabis
  23. Alchemilla
  24. Scorzonera
  25. Tragopogon
  26. Sanguisorba
  27. Campanula
  28. Primula
  29. Taraxacum
  30. Rumex
  31. Viola
  32. Lepidium
  33. Claytonia
  34. Ligularia
  35. Fragaria
  36. Osmorhiza
  37. Barbarea
  38. Hemerocallis
  39. Crambe
  40. Myrrhis

Alys meets the Modern Monk in the Edible Garden

10 years ago today I had my first celebrity visit, from the UK! On 10th April 2010 I received the following email message entitled Permaveggies:
“I am a garden writer based in Birmingham, England. I came across your work via an interview with you on a website and am very interested in learning more about your garden. I also share a love for unusual edibles that can be used in an ‘ornamental setting’. I suppose my garden has one foot in the forest garden camp and the other in a cottage garden. The greatest majority are edibles (everything from your typical vegetables to the more unusuals) with the rest being useful plants for medicine, feeding the garden or pollinators. I suppose the interesting part is that it’s a typical row terrace garden that’s about 60 ft long- cramped in is one way of looking at its design principles. I’ve written a book about it called the Edible Garden with it in conjunction with a programme on BBC2.
Anyhow I would love to talk more about your work and what you’ve discovered. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Alys Fowler”
The interview was the one published on my friend Telsing Andrews’ blog, The Veggie Patch Reimagined (see https://veggiepatchreimagined.blogspot.com/2010/02/stephens-edimental-oasis-interview.html).
As part of this BBC series, permaculture had just been featured on 7th April 2010. The BBC crew visited Tim and Maddy Harland’s (my publishers) garden and were bowled over by their mature forest garden full of food and wildlife.
In my reply I jokingly wrote “Stop by next time you’re in the area”!
Little did I know that she would do just that a few months later! It turned out that she was researching her book “The Thrifty Forager” and was “looking for people to interview who boldly eat what others might not think to…”!
Alys’ book The Thrifty Forager was published the year after but my book with Introduction by Alys took another 3 years!
She devotes a whole section to my garden, its plants and The Modern Monk (guess who?) :) In the foreword to my book, there’s a picture of Alys reading my old coverless copy of Cornucopia II in the garden!
Below are 4 albums of pictures taken by Alys’ cameraman Brian Wheeler!

I have fond memories of this visit during a really hot period after the coldest June since the 1960s. The first album are pictures from the garden, the second from a forage and swim in the fjord, then a trip up to a local mountain Vennafjellet , via a second swimming spot, Nevrahølet (we were finished quite quickly with the pictures and interview in the garden due to the wonderful weather) and finally some pictures from Trondheim!
Alys was also a presenter on BBC’s Gardener’s World and writes a gardening column for the Guardian!

Other blog posts about Alys!
Alys Fowler in the Edible Garden:
https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=276
Alys’ Pool: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=5572

1. Brian Wheeler’s photographs of The Edible Garden

2. Brian Wheeler’s photographs from a tour of the bay and beach below the house (after her swim, Alys said for the first time that I lived in paradise!)

3. Trip to Vennafjellet via Nevrahølet swimming hole in the eyes of Brian Wheeler

4. Alys Fowler in Trondheim (by Brian Wheeler)




 

The Allium garden at Ringve

19th June 2020: Video update from the Allium (Chicago) garden at the NTNU Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim. The heat wave has brought many species into flower and the garden’s looking great! 
The official opening of the garden, planned for August, has been postponed to 2021. We are working on plant signs which will hopefully be added later in the summer.
The garden currently contains some 300 accessions including around 100 Allium species and many old Norwegian onions collected over several years from all over the country and funded by Norsk Genressurssenteret and Landbruksdirektoratet.
The signs for the garden are in part funded through a gift from Skjærgaarden (https://www.skjaergaarden.no) to KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) who have decided to use the gift at Ringve (see https://www.facebook.com/skjaergaarden.no/videos/2972781459487864)

KVANN treff Day 1 at Væres Venner and Presthus Gård

The first evening of KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) weekend event in Trondheim and Malvik, we visited KVANN’s first “nyttevekstreservat” (inspired by Lawrence Hills’ proposal for vegetable sanctuaries across Europe as a reaction to the loss of our vegetable diverity in 1979!) at Væres Venner Felleshage (a new communiy garden in Trondheim). KVANN have already started work on a Verdenshage (World Garden) and another area currently being used as a holding bed for a future diversity garden, including walnut, hazel, sea buckthorn and other fruit trees to be planted elsewhere..
Afterwards, Sølvi Kvam took us to nearby Presthus Gård, a farm which has until recently been threatened by nearby housing developments. It will now be developed with many activities and KVANN are also welcome to make suggestions!
 
See also