Tag Archives: Typha

Jorge’s edible water garden

I’ll always be grateful to my friend Jorge Carona as without him I would never have been invited to Portugal. The story of how we met is told here:

Sintra Foraging with Fernanda Botelho

He was also instrumental in suggesting that the Ecoaldeia de Janas should invite me to give a course! Added to that, he did almost all the driving on my trip. I also spent two nights at his house on the hills in Calhandriz above Alverca near Lisbon and was able to see his edible water gardens for the first time! So here are a few pictures of the garden, sadly neglected as Jorge wasn’t living here for some time! He has a large water tank under an outhouse to supply the water for this project! The pond is an oasis for wildlife in the dry countryside which has been suffering from drought for several years! Many thanks, Jorge!
Other edible water plants in the pond: Bacopa, Acorus, Oenanthe, Houttuynia, Aponogeton and watercress. Elsewhere in the garden, Jorge has planted apples, pears, orange, plums,fig and edible bamboos! A great little garden!

Winchester walk

On my recent quick visit to my parents in Hampshire, UK,  we did a walk from St Cross to Winchester along the River Itchen with Mum (89) and Dad  (93) followed by a walk up St Catharine’s Hill on my own to do the mizmaze ;)

Video of Winchester from St. Catharine’s Hill:

Visiting Camilla Plum

On 2nd May 2016 I finally got to visit Camilla Plum and Fuglebjerggaard. Camilla is one of Scandinavia’s best known authors and broadcasters on edible gardening and cooking. It was such a beautiful day that the formal talk was abandoned in favour of an edible tour of the organic nursery and farm lead by myself and Camilla. A great crowd of knowledgeable folk, some of whom had travelled quite a long way including one couple from Norway! Thanks for inviting me Camilla!! A great place and many must-have plants :)

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Camilla in front of a large bed of emerging Ostrich Ferns which were obviously thriving in this open location as shoots were popping up in the grass around the bed!

 

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Wool mulch
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Perennial kales
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One of the 80 in my book is Allium obliquum, twistedleaf garlic from Siberia! I’d never seen it growing on this scale before.
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This form of Allium obliquum had beautiful purple stems and was also on sale on the nursery.
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Nursery
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Edible perennials
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What was happening here? Camilla had asked staff to go down into this swampy pit to collect rhizomes and young shoots of a plant known in North America as the Supermarket of the swamps… 
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Harvesting salad ingredients :)
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Large selection of chilis!
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Large selection of chilis!
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Yellow flowered Allium moly is a great edible onion for partiual shade in the forest garden! Not often you see this one on sale, although supermarket chain Lidl were selling bulbs this autumn!
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Hop clones after Danish breeder Øyvind Winge, now made available in the nursery. I remember seeing these in the hop collection at Årslev…
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DAHLIAS!
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Hop-Asparagus!
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Perennial kales
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…and Lathyrus tuberosus
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Scorzonera
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Tulbaghia or Society Garlic from South Africa
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Wonderful lunch with ostrich fern, fried dandelion flower buds with salt and a lovely salad with tulip petals!
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Mushroom plant, Rungia klossii from Papua New Guinea is a novel salad plant

 

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