On 4th April 2018, I took advantage of my trip to Switzerland to attend the The Potential of Perennials for Food Resilience symposium to visit KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) sister organisation Pro Specie Rara in Basel. Many thanks to Director Béla Bartha (since 2002) and Head of Education, Esther Meduna for making me feel so welcome. The trial grounds and offices of Pro Specie Rara are located in the Merian Gärten, a botanical garden in Basel. I lead a walk and talk of the trial grounds and botanical collections followed by an evening lecture at Markthalle in the centre of Basel! A great place for a seed saver organisation to be located! Béla also showed me their seed vault a specially climate controlled room (15C and 15% humidity). The walk and talk was sadly interrupted by heavy rain and we moved indoors and I did a short version of my evening lecture instead!
See also on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10156381535005860&type=1&l=add4af4a2e
Pictures and review of my walk and talk at Merian Gärten: https://www.prospecierara.ch/de/news/rueckblick-around-the-world-in-80-plants
Here’s a review of my lecture: https://einfachnachhaltig.net/2018/05/14/around-the-world-in-80-plants
Pro specie rara trial grounds
Pro specie rara trial grounds
Allium x proliferum “Vom Elsass”
Allium fistulosum “St. Jakobs-Zwiebel Hans Frey”
German “Ehwiger Kohl” (perennial kale)
German “Ehwiger Kohl” (perennial kale)
Allium tuberosum “Schnittknoblauch GHW”
Lesser celandine / vårkål, one of the most popular spring vegetables in the Mediterranean, used before flowering
Nettles / brennesle
Ramsons / ramsløk
Heracleum sphondylium (hogweed / kystbjørnekjeks)
Pro specie rara are based in the building to the left
I sadly didn’t get a chance to explore the English Garden
The seed vault: Pro Specie Rara were gifted money to construct this climate controlled room for seed storage
The seed vault:
The seed vault:
A good crowd had turned out for the walk and talk….here before the storm clouds moved in…
My evening talk was in the centre of Basel
Markthalle was the venue for my talk
Markthalle crowd
Esther Meduna gives the introduction
Day 3 of the KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) meet was at the Ringve Botanical Garden Open Day in Trondheim. The day started early as I drove one of the participants to the station in Trondheim and then spent a couple of hours collecting some of the ingredients for a multi-species salad. Including plants collected on a walk, talk and forage for KVANN members, we managed 111 ingredients in the salad! Thanks to all who helped make it a very successful and fun weekend!
Up early to another wonderful view
Coffee break at Ringve planning my walk and forage
Andrew and Meg working at the Ringve Botanical Gardens :)
Some of the salad ingredients
Hablitzia sales plants (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde)
Tijana Gajic weeding at the Ringve botanical gardens – we found some Chenopodium album (fat hen / meldestokk), picked for the salad!
Weeding at the Ringve botanical gardens – we found some Chenopodium album (fat hen / meldestokk), picked for the salad!
Sampling Myrrhis odorata (sweet cicely) flowers and young seeds for the salad in the Renaissance Garden…more about the Renaissance Garden which has 123 plants that were documented grown in Trondheim in the 1690s in the following link including a salad I made on the opening of the garden some years ago! Poisonous Veratrum (False Hellebore / Nyserot) in the foreground was discussed as a confusion species to edible Hostas!
Bad boy Barstow?….but I did have permission to harvest from the garden’s collections :)
Bad boy Barstow?….but I did have permission to harvest from the garden’s collections :)
Rosa moyesii in full flower (mandarinrose), you can see the flowers in the final salad!
Eirik and Kjell admiring Rosa moyesii in full flower (mandarinrose)
Magnolia acuminata
The final salad put together by KVANN members was shown on our stand before taste samples were offered to the public! Children were eager to taste the flowers! With Hemerocallis, Allium ursinum, Fuchsia, Rosa moyesii, asparagus, Hosta flower shoots and leaves, violets, dandelion etc.
An album of pictures from my visit to National Trust property Mount Stewart on the Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland!
I return for the Planters Seminar in September!
Thanks to Neil Porteous for having me over :)
Mount Stewart
This was where I talked and ranted about the wonderful misunderstood Dandelion!
The main event was the Gardener’s Question Time recording (BBC Radio 4) with Bob Flowerdew and others
Foraging with the chefs from The Merchant Hotel in Belfast…here picking sorrel
….and Gunnera!
As Head of Gardener Neil Porteous who brought me over said humorously, the walk and talk took on biblical proportions :) Far too many people logistically :)
After my walk, talk and forage, the tasters prepared by the chefs were popular
After my walk, talk and forage, the tasters prepared by the chefs were popular
Foraged edimtentals included day lily buds, Hosta flower shoots and peeled Gunnera leaf stems. The chefs raved about all 3!!
The Gunnera was eaten raw dipped into a sauce…
Various edibles I spotted in the next pictures: Rheum palmatum?
Aralia cordata or californica?
Yucca (the flowers are edible)
Wisteria
Oxalis corniculata?
A double Camassia
A double Camassia
Rubus spectabilis with white Hesperis
Eucalyptus globulus
Himalayan lilt , Cardiocrinum
Smilacina racemosa, false solomon’s seal
Naturalised Camassia?
My day at Mount Stewart started before 8am accompanying Neil Porteous collecting plants introduced by famous Scottish plant hunter George Forrest for an exhibit to accompany a talk by Matt Biggs about Forrest. Neil is Head of Gardens at Mount Stewart and also the regional Gardens & Parks Advisor for NI for the National Trust
Mount Stewart has a mild climate and specialises on plants from the Southern Hemisphere…here two Maori food plants, Phormium (NZ Flax) to the left and the broad leaved mountain cabbage tree (Cordyline indivisa). Phormium nectar was commonly collected by the Maori as a sweetener. It was mixed with a meal from the root and stem of cabbage trees and also used to sweeten bracken fern roots! This was before bees were introduced to NZ by the Europeans!
The broad leaved mountain cabbage tree or tōī.(Cordyline indivisa) on the right with more common in cultivation Cordyline australis (ti kouka). The cooked roots of all cabbage trees were eaten by the Maori, but it was the roots of non-native Cordyline terminalis (ti pore) which was cultivated that were most highly prized! The core of the trunks were also sometimes eaten. They were best in spring and young trees were mostly used (less than 2m)
Davidia involucrata (handkerchief tree)
Neil Porteous with a handful of handkerchiefs…Davidia involucrata (handkerchief tree) for the George Forrest exhibit
Edible Hostas and Ostrich fern
A good sized Gaultheria shallon from western North America (maybe there’ll be fruit on my return visit in September?)
Gunnera
A nice pink flowered form of Cornus kousa!
One of the world’s most spectacular edimentals was in flower at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland at the weekend! Related to other great edimentals like Agave and Yucca, the Mexican Lily or Patleamole is sadly not likely to be hardy in my part of the world (Yucca filamentosa is hardy though!). Beschorneria is a small genus consisting of seven species that range from the southern US, Mexico and Central America. Mexican lily’s habitat is rocky massifs and cliffs in canyons and ravines from 2600 to 3,400 masl in pine-oak and fir (Abies religiosa) forest (Ref. 1). In the same reference, it is noted that “….the flowers are edible, after being boiled and fried.”
Decaisnea
Neil pointed out a Sonchus arboreus (tree sow thistle) that had survived the winter).
…and Neil was proud to show me a fine udo (Aralia cordata)!!
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Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden