For the first time freely available is my article in Permaculture Magazine about my largest and most exciting vegetable Udo (Aralia cordata)! See the link near the bottom of the page and please subscribe here, they do a great job, but need our support! Go to https://www.permaculture.co.uk/subscribe…………….
To witness the underground cultivation of Udo in large caverns under Tokyo (mentioned in the article) was one of the reasons for embarking on a study tour of Japan with Naturplanteskolen in Denmark in Spring 2016, and during the visit we discovered that you can have one more layer in a forest garden……..
The udo wood…
About to descend for the first time into Udo heaven; picture courtesy of Naturplanteskolen
…and there they were!!
Green udo tempura in a restaurant!
The broccolis are also used
In the coldest spring ever in 2015 in my area, udo grew better than ever, whilst traditional farmers were struggling to sow and plant!
Thanks to Tei Kobayashi who acted as interpreter and liasing with the local authorities, to Ken Minatoya in the Netherlands who also initially called the city clerks for me and Joan Bailey for helping out, accompanying us on the visit and also for writing a local article, see here http://metropolisjapan.com/more-than-cherry-blossoms
I will write more about this visit as well as my other encounters with Udo in Japan as soon as I can!!
Click the link to download this Norwegian report on a project in which old hop plants were collected from 18 locations around Norway (in Norwegian). Some of these are now available for members of Norwegian Seed Savers (Planteklubben for grønnsaker).
Wanted!! I’m pretty sure I’ve lost these really tasty raspberries which I called “Apricot” and spread to various folk back in the days of Sjølbergeren (a self-sufficiency magazine here in Norway).
I originally got these through a visit to the Kvithamar research station in Stjørdal which is quite near here…they were breeding yellow raspberries (one of them that has become popular was eventually called Varnes). We were allowed a taste, a seed trapped in my teeth and when I got home I sowed it ;) The resultant fruit was much more tasty than Varnes (bred for a number of other characters too, not just taste) and I wanted others to experience it…but now I don’t have it any more, so please if you still have it, please can I have a bit back?
ApricotberriesApricotberries with black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis)Sitting under my birch tree one day in 2009 and the tree was offering me free nutty tasting birch seed on my apricotberry porridge!
For the first time this year I have two different Yam beans growing in my office in Trondheim, Ahipa and Jicama (Pachyrhizus ahipa og Pachyrhizus erosus). I’ve grown and eaten Jicama before and here’s an album of pictures about my experiences of this delicious vegetable…worth growing for a little taste each year!
On the left, Ahipa (Pachyrhizus ahipa; Andean yam bean) and Jicama (P. erosus, Yam bean) in my office; September 2016… I hadn’t realised that Ahipa doesn’t climb, hence the stakes on both plants…the yellow things are models of my company, OCEANOR’s marine environmental monitoring buoys that I tested in a wave tank back in the 80s!
Reaching for the lights..
The first time I grew Jicama was in 2008. The yield wasn’t fantastic, but enough to try, here with tomatillos
Peeled Jicamas
Quinoa boiled and then stir-fried with chili, tomatoes and onion.
Home grown Norwegian tomatillos ready to cook ;)
Cooked tomatillos with other salsa ingredients!
The final dinner, grated Jicama with lemon bottom left was one of the tastiest vegetables I’ve eaten, salsa (bottom right) and quinoa (top)
My daughter painted a Jicama tuber… I’ve always liked this :)
September 2014 and I was visiting a friend in Woodstock, Vermont and we found Jicamas in the local food coop!
Jicama and chilis
This Woodstock edimental jicama salad was delicious (with foraged greens and flowers)
An album of pictures from my short Perennialen II visit with Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Svendsen at and around Alvastien Telste in Hardanger. Impressive nature, good beer and fruit, good company and just relaxing this time! It poured with rain on the morning that we’d planned to look properly around the Forest Garden, so that will have to wait for next year! Watch this space for the announcement of the next Perennialen event at this wonderful place, now a Permaculture LAND centre, next summer!! Hope to see you there!
Returning to nature
This climber had broken into the house, but it looks like someone has pruned the outside growth away from the window!
Hops
Steinstø “Fruit and cake shop” :) had a good selection of varieties of locally grown fruit!
Ramsons puree!
The road to Hege and Eirik’s LAND centre
The road to Hege and Eirik’s LAND centre
Eirik in the local beer drinking costume ;)
Bedroom view :)
Record rainfall recently and the waterfalls are full…there’s a minihydro scheme up there!
Old walls/terassing are protected
Stunning engineering, pylons way up on the mountainside…
Aralia elata (Devil’s walking stick / fandens spaserstokk) flowering in a local garden, one of the 80 in my book!
Aralia elata (Devil’s walking stick / fandens spaserstokk) flowering in a local garden, one of the 80 in my book!
Alvastien Telste
The forest garden…sadly, it was pouring with rain the next morning, so I didn’t get a proper chance to look around the garden!
The forest garden…sadly, it was pouring with rain the next morning, so I didn’t get a proper chance to look around the garden!
Juniper growing out of a rock!
Alvastien Telste from the other side of the fjord. Eirik and Hege own a wide strip of land up to and to the right of the waterfall near the top…must do the walk up to the mountain cabin next time!
Alvastien Telste
House on the rock!!
On the way to my next stop at Stussvik, where I’d been invited to spend the night with local organic guru Vidar-Rune Synnevåg and his wife, we stopped at Skarsvatnet Goldfish Lake!
Skarsvatnet is home to a number of introduced species including Golden Orfe, Crucian Carp, Eel and Three-spined stickleback…
Mallard with carp
Flowering Japanese knotweed, one of the 80 in my book!
Alvastien Telste is Norway’s first LAND project (LAND officially started up in Norway yesterday) located on a side arm of the Hardangerfjord in beautiful surroundings…this was my next stop on my short tour of Western Norway. This little film (shot unknown to Eirik Lillebøe Wiken who was driving and narrating) shows the dramatic approach to this place, run by Eirik and Hege Iren Svendsen!
The road is very exposed to rock slides…see the size of the boulders that have tumbled down the hill and the repairs to the road and notice at 1:00 the sign warning of falling rocks
In the last part, we enter the forest garden area before seeing the house!
The sun is now rising close to due East having swung round day for day from close to north over a few short weeks…the sunrise is now rushing towards south….
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden