Having survived the wapato harvest last week (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31597), our helper Daniil Titov was put to another challenging, harvesting the last apples….there are always many apples that we cannot reach with the apple picker, so tree shaking has to be resorted to as it’s too dangerous to use ladders on the steep slope. These will be dried in the near future. We already have enough for eating fresh until April in this year’s bumper harvest of Aroma apples. There are still quite a few at the top of the tree which couldn’t be shaken down, left for the birds.
Waxwings on apples
Waxwings (sidensvans) have arrived here in numbers with about 70 in the garden today! Most of their favourite berry, rowan (rogn) had gone by the time they arrived due to the large flocks of thrushes that were here a week ago (mainly fieldfares, redwings and blackbirds / gråtrost, rødvingetrost og svarttrost). They had opened up quite a few apples near the tops of the trees before they moved on, and now the waxwings are enjoying them – they luckily don’t try to open other apples, so that there are still many for us! We’ve been harvesting the last few days, but still a lot near the tops of the trees that are difficult to reach even with the apple picker!
Daniil and the duck potatoes
October Salad
Tim Harland RIP
Tim kindly drove me home to my parents’ in Chandlers Ford afterwards.
See also appreciations at https://www.facebook.com/PermacultureMag
Organic week in Trøndelag / Økouka i Trøndelag
Last week was National Organic Week (Økouka), a busy week for me as I had two garden tours in my Edible Garden in Malvik (the rain stopped both days just before we started), a walk and talk in the community garden at Væres Venner and a talk at Stammen Cafe & Bar in Trondheim on “Perennial Climate-friendly Food Plants for Urban Areas” talking about 15 advantages of growing perennials! Below you can see pictures from each of the events which were all well attended. I’ve credited the various photographers below. Thanks to all that came along!
1. Garden tour on Wednesday 27th September
Making the Ø letter for Økouka (picture: Margaret Anderson)
2. Talk at Stammen
2. Garden tour on Sunday 1st October
Pictures by Markus Tacker (click on the album pictures for more information):
Pictures by Marit By (click on the album pictures for more information)::
4. Walk and talk in the Væres Venner Community Garden
Pictures by Marit By (the World Garden looking good in its autumn colours with the backdrop of the old ash trees):
Broad Bean Land Race
First and second harvest of broad beans for drying to eat and next year’s seed. This is my “Væres Venner Mix” land race selected for maximum bean diversity each year – a joy to work with and candy for the eyes! The first sowing (first picture) were sown on 18th May and harvested on 19th September; the second sowing was on 2nd June and were harvested on 24th September (both were 5 different colour selections from last year’s crop; sown in 5 adjacent rows!)
Black mustard seed
Seed processing season is upon us once again and all available space on window sills is full 🙂
Grow your own spice! These are seeds of black mustard /svartsennep (Brassica nigra / Rhamphospermum nigrum) grown in the Væres Venner Community Garden this year. I use them most in Indian food.
Beautiful garden spider
Found this beautiful coloured European garden spider / korsedderkopp (Araneus diadematus) this morning!
Promoting Perennial Vegetables seminar
Earlier this summer (23rd May; https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31209) I spent a great few hours together with Eva Johansson and Annevi Sjöberg from Sweden in my 3 gardens. They were on a fact-finding mission in connection with the project ”Främja fleråriga grönsaker i svensk matförsörjning” (Promoting perennial vegetables in the Swedish food supply). Link to my blog post in comments.
Everyone can now take part via zoom in a one-day seminar on this topic by signing up here (it’s free and some of the talks are in English!): https://perennagronsaker.se/seminarium-framja-flerariga-gronsaker-i-svensk-matproduktion-16-oktober
The project is financed with funds from the Swedish Agency for Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) within the framework of the Swedish food strategy (den svenska livsmedelsstrategin) and runs until Dec 2023. The Skillebyholm Foundation manages the project.
As usual, Sweden is way ahead of Norway with innovation!