I always grow many different types of peas and broad beans (favas) (erter og bondebønner). Peas (Pisum sativum) rarely if ever cross so I grow them very close to each other. Broad beans do cross, but active selection I do manage to keep several varieties true to type (such as crimson flowered with its distinctive beautiful lime green beans ).They’ve been lying around the house on windowsills drying for two months and I finally got round to sorting them, saving some for seed, and saving extra of good ones for Norwegian Seed Savers’ yearbook. The rest I just mix to make mixed bean falafel and pea soup later in the winter!
Mixed peas
Marbled broad beans
Salmon flowered peas, one of the most beautiful peas (an edimental) and also productive here. Itis a crown pea with clusters of beautiful salmon pink flowers! See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?attachment_id=13085 and http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?attachment_id=13086
Close-up detail of a salmon flowered pea, See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?attachment_id=13086
Today (13th December) is St. Lucia Parrot day and people are celebrating the world’s most beautiful parrot everywhere…even here in Malvik ;) – well, this is how I interpret this important feast day here….and the presence of this parrot in my indoor forest garden helps to brighten up the dark days of winter, together with the waxwings (aka arctic parrots, which are foraging in the garden as we speak!)….
When we visited the island in 1981, we hooked up with the local naturalist’s trust who gave a talk at the hotel about this bird and we were lucky enough to see one that had been found injured. This was just after Hurricane Allen had devastated the island and the population crashed to under 100 birds as reported in this video. It’s good to know that the population is now over 1,000 thanks to the conservation efforts for this wonderful endemic species found nowhere else than on this Caribbean island:
Waxwings (sidensvans) and siskin (grønnsisik) foraging under the bird feeder today.
With siskin and tree sparrow seen today, that brings this week’s species count to 21 species in the garden…in addition various other species have been seen flying over and on the fjord!
An active weekend in the garden digging a trench for the Internet, moving and stacking firewood and piling leaves over less hardy plants…before the next freeze with air temperature forecast to be below zero for the next 10 days…
Forbordfjellet was illuminated for several hours today
Sunny Forbordsfjellet
Sunny Forbordsfjellet
A long hole has appeared this weekend
Long hole digging for Internet cable!
Piles of leaves give winter protection to some less hardy plants in pots and my blackberry which has been layed down flat..
A flock of 10 bramblings (bjørkefink) and 3 chaffinches in the garden this morning. They were also taking kale (Brassica oleracea) seed (second film). I hadn’t noticed this before! A plan then to grow kale seed for the finches in future..
Two nuthatches (spettmeis) on the bird feeder this morning with a short guest appearance of a male chaffinch (bokfink) :) See the video below! A dark morning here, the sun has now set until it rises again around 14th January! Only secondhand sun now clipping the tops of the trees on Malvikodden:
I received my PDC after completing the course mainly taught by Jan Bang at my house in Malvik during 3 long weekends in 2017. My project report was about how I designed my own garden using permaculture design principles (without having read about them). The report can be downloaded below:
