Documentation of yet another amazing day during last week’s Perennialen III in Hardanger!! Pictures taken on a fantastic 6-7 hour round trip from Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Aasdal Wiken’s house to their shieling (støl or seter in Norwegian). We took our time botanising on the way up, passing through different types of forest on the way up, from alder (or), ash (ask), planted spruce (gran), lime (lind), elm (alm), hazel (hassel), aspen (osp) and birch (bjørk) at the highest levels. Lower down, old apple trees witnessed that these steep slopes had at one time been worked for fruit production, no easy matter….
Eirik and Hege are planning to rejuvenate and replant some of this area and have planted a multispecies forest garden above and below the house, probably one of the most dramatic forest gardens in the world (more later).
A picture of Alvastien Telste taken last year showing the house at the bottom centre and the walk to the ridge at the top and beyond!
Starting our walk up the mountain, I took this picture of a farm on the other side of the fjord and, next picture, a shieling (seter / støl) is visible on the ridge at the top!
Shieling (seter / støl)
The house at Alvastien Telste
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Eirik and Hege’s tree house (I stayed there on my first visit – Perennialen I)
Under the spruce, a ground cover of young ash seedlings…the future of which is uncertain as Ash dieback has arrived here…
Impaties noli-tangere (Touch me not balsam / springfrø) was common on damper soils
Ostrich fern (strutseving) with enchanters nightshade (trollurt)
Cirsium arvense on a small open field halfway up the hill
Campanula
Late flowering Silene dioica (red campion /rød jonsokblom)
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Alder tongue gall (Taphrina alni)
Mycelis muralis
Galium odoratum (woodruff / myske)
Rock to which an old cable lift was attached
Fox dung with beetle cases?
Old apple tree half way up
We saw one small population of hedge garlic (løkurt)
Wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Clambering wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Hazel (hassel)
More ostrich fern (strutseving)
There were many amazing trees, many of which were pollarded (for animal feed in the past)
Old barn
Pyrola spp.
Woodruff (myske)
The Troll Elm!
Eirik showed us an old cross on the rock marking the edge of his property
This ostrich fern had over 30 fertile fronds in the centre!!
I was surpised to find an area of Geranium lucidum
Woodruff (myske)
Steep slopes
Galium spp.
…the rain came down near the top
Fantastic views of the fjord on the way up!
Frosted bracken?
Rut pool used by red deer stags!
There weren’t many edible fungi apart from one good patch of chantarelles in the birch zone
Picking chantarelles
…and, finally, after 4 hours we reached the hut!
Foxglove (revebjelle) within the protection of this old wall
I’ve grown burdock in my garden, originally mainly as a root vegetable, since the 80s when Japanese varieties such as Takinogawa Long and Watanabe Early began to appear in vegetable seed catalogues in the UK. In japan, it’s an important root crop that is available in all supermarkets both as fresh roots and in various processed products (also fermented):
The Goldfinches (stillits) are back. They are winter visitors here and, as far as I know, it isn’t known where these birds breed, perhaps in the Baltic states /Finland, moving westwards to overwinter in our warmer weather!
These beautiful birds started appearing in my garden some 15 years ago as I grew and saved seed of vegetable burdock (borre) or Arctium lappa, their main food here in winter. At that time my garden was the best place to see them and I had several visits from bird photographers and birdwatchers to see them. It must be a bad year for burdock (there’s not much in my garden) as they’ve gone straight for the bird feeder, something that doesn’t usually happen until later in the winter.
Part of a flock of 29 goldfinches in the garden today!
Greenfinches / grønnfink are the commonest finches in the winter here . They find both natural food (seed of burdock / borre and rosa spp., both wild and planted) and bird seed I put out. A flock of about 30 was in the garden today.
Greenfinches / Grønnfink are hard at work in the garden foraging burdock seeds…building up their fat reserves for the winter. I’ve grown burdock for my years both as a vegetable and for the birds (greenfinch and, later, goldfinches).
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
