Category Archives: Talks

Around the world in 80 plant video from Hurdal

Presenting the entire 3 hour Around the World in 80 plants talk (in English for the first time), which was live streamed yesterday from Kjøkkenhagen in Hurdal Ecovillage, Norway across the world wide web . Links to the 3 parts, so far only on Facebook here:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMSyt7qqGE

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIlkhwQ-t48

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxBwHzygpw

Some 100 vegetable fanatics had found their way to Hurdal for this “sell out” event. A fantastic international crowd of knowledgeable folks of all ages! Thanks specially to Berit Børte who arranged and promoted the event and to Ane Mari Aakernes for filming!! I’ll be back!!
Thanks also to the board of the newly established Norwegian Seed Savers organisation who had a successful steering committee meeting without me in parallel with my talk…you’ll see them at the end of Part 3!

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The vegetable crowd!

 

Mini tour of Canada

Thanks to my long-term “virtual” friend, vegetable and fertilizer innovator extraodinaire Michel Lachaume, I have been invited by well-known Québécois farmer and author Jean-Martin Fortier to hold a seminar at the farm he manages in Hemmingford, Quebec: permaculture-inspired  la Ferme des Quatres-temps for leading chefs in the area! This will probably be on 11th April!

You can read more about Jean-Martin here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Martin_Fortier

I’m going to take advantage of this amazing opportunity to do a little mini-tour of Canada, do a bit of teaching, learning and experience early spring edibles in another part of the world in nature and gardens! Here’s my rough tentative itinerary
Arrive Vancouver 28th March
29th March – 4th April: Salt Spring Island – Victoria –  Vancouver
(5th – 6th April) Halifax, NS (uncertain)
7th – 12th (Montreal – Quebec – Ottawa area) with 11th at the farm!
13th Toronto (Botanical garden?)
13th Evening flight back to Norway!

A visit to Riverton in March 2015!

At the end of March 2015, I visited the small town of Riverton (Maori: Aparima) (population 1,430) in New Zealand to give a talk at the Riverton Heritage Harvest Festival!  The invite to give a talk had come about by way of my friend Steve Hart who I had met at the European Permaculture Convergence in Bulgaria. Steve (who is from NZ) and his lovely lady Martina had moved to NZ  that same summer and when I contacted them for suggestions for places to visit / talk, Steve was quick to recommended me to the organisers of the Riverton festival which coincided with my visit! A second contact, Jutta (now Jane) Meiforth who headed the local permaculture group here in Trondheim but who had also moved recently to NZ, wrote to me:   “….you should try to visit the food forest belonging to Robert and Robyn Guyton: http://permaculturenews.org/2013/04/21/letters-from-new-zealand-a-permaculture-food-forest-in-the-far-south/”  The video above convinced me that this event was essential on my tour of NZ (the Guytons were also central organisers of the festival!)

I’d been meaning to post something about my visit to the Guyton’s forest garden and the festival for a long time. What inspired me to do this was a fantastic new video of the Guytons’ food forest which my friend Peat Miller Moss ( a Kiwi who has strong Norwegian connections!). See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GJFL0MD9fc

If you watch the two videos above you will understand why I think (and hope) that one day Riverton and the Guytons will be recognised as one of the main global origins of the evolution of the New World diversified Perma-order! It really is an inspiring place, particularly as it started as degraded land, and the Guytons have inspired many New Zealand gardeners to plant food forests and, I’m told, have inspired folks to settle in Riverton, resulting in a hike in house prices! Nevertheless, there’s no mention of the Guytons and these  very important developments on the town’s wikipedia page!

Below are 3 galleries of my own pictures from my visit to Riverton.  The first gallery shows pictures from the food forest…unfortunately my best camera failed and it was getting dark and not the best time to visit being autumn….so these pictures don’t really do the place credit!

The gallery below has been posted before (FB: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153110186060860.1073742280.655215859&type=1&l=11d4819ff7) and shows the great display of heirloom potatoes, apples and tomatoes at the Festival! See https://heritagefoodcrops.org.nz/
It includes various Maori potatoes (http://www.countrytrading.co.nz/collections/heritage-seeds-potatoes)

Finally, a gallery of other pictures taken at the festival which was held at the Aparima College Hall in Riverton

After the festival was a great Pot luck Traditional Heritage Feast on the Saturday night! I remember teaching how to fold your own traditional seed packet sometime that evening. The following link shows how! https://fmanos.wordpress.com/tag/origami-seed-packets
I learned this some 30 years ago from my gardening friend Marie Gaden (now 86) who told me she had learned the technique from an old lady! Here’s one of Marie’s seed packets photographed on her table 2 years ago!
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Weekend course at Nesheimstunet

A few pictures from this weekend’s course on perennial vegetables based on my book for Haugaland sopp- og nyttevekstforening (Haugaland useful plant society). I gave two 4 hour talks on Saturday and Sunday, but still had to skip a few plants….
Thanks to Gro Hetland for inviting me!

Organic seminar 2016 at Bjerkem

Økologisk seminar at Bjerkem, near Steinkjer has become a tradition and it was a great day together with kindred spirits with a wide range of interests and skills. Thanks so much to the hosts Jakob Bjerkem and Berit for taking a chance in inviting me to give a talk!

Portåsen and Norwegian Plant Heritage

I get invited to talk in some wonderful places! On 27th April 2014 I visited Portåsen and gave a shortened version of my Around the World in 80 plants talk in the comfortable Hay Loft venue at Portåsen!

The Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre (NGRC) think that all cultural heritage institutions in Norway with landscaping ought to use historical plants suitable for the actual buildings, associated culture and history.  Portåsen is one of the places that have made the most progress with this. Portåsen is the childhood home of Herman Wildenvey (1885-1959) in Nedre Eiker. Wildenvey is one of the most prominent Norwegian poets of the twentieth century. During his lifetime he published 44 books of his own poetry.  Portåsen was established in 2010 as a cultural centre for the dissemination of Herman Wildenvey’s life and works. Herman Wildenvey was known as the “sun and summer” poet, and his poems reference some 80 different flower and plants. It is said that one of his first reading experiences were from Blytt’s Flora. Therefore it is quite natural that historical plants and traditional plant use gives a key backdrop to the varied cultural events with exhibitions, concerts, walks etc. at Portåsen. The place is beautifully restored.  In the flower beds around the houses in the yard can be found historical perennial ornamentals (to be classified as Plant Heritage, a plant has to be documented to have been grown 50 years ago), which were either found in old gardens locally or received from “Oldemors garden” at the botanics in Oslo or from Lier Bygdetun (both have collections coordinated with the NGRC). Just above the yard is a well-tended vegetable and herb garden with food and spice plants, and within a traditionally erected fence can be found old apple varieties. A meadow has also been sown with seeds from Ryghsetra, an old local hayfield which Friends of the Earth Buskerud have received the Norwegian Plant Heritage prize for maintaining! The following lines are from Wildenveys poem “O, ennu å være”

O, ennu å synge om midtsommernetter,
Og ennu å ånde i kryddersval luft,
Ennu å vite, hva blomstene hetter
Og nevne dem ved deres farve og duft.

(loosely translated from Åsmund Asdal’s article here: http://www.skogoglandskap.no/nyheter/2012/portasen/newsitem)

The Extreme Salad Man UK mini tour; June 2016

A reminder of my mini tour of southern England next week: 

12th June 2016: Hellens Garden Festival, UK: Talk based on my book Around the World in 80 plants;  see http://visitherefordshire.co.uk/event/hellens-garden-festival-2  (see also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=3609 )

14th June 2016: Wardington Manor, Banbury,  UK : workshop on perennial vegetables (http://thelandgardeners.squarespace.com/upcoming-events/#/new-gallery-20)

15th June 2016: Talk and book signing with Southampton’s Groovy Growers at the Art House Gallery, Southampton between 18 and 21 (for tickets: see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/around-the-world-in-80-plants-talk-and-book-signing-with-stephen-barstow-tickets-25435606584?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=esfb&utm-source=fb&utm-term=listing)

Coming home to talk to some groovy growers

I grew up in Eastleigh only a few miles from Southampton, so it’s a bit special for me to be invited to talk to some groovy growers in that town on Wednesday 15th June 2016!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/around-the-world-in-80-plants-talk-and-book-signing-with-stephen-barstow-tickets-25435606584?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=esfb&utm-source=fb&utm-term=listing

Around the World in Oslo!

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Honorata Gajda from the Norwegian Botanical Association introduces!
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Udo, Aralia cordata, my largest vegetable!
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I had far too little time in the garden…but I did manage to say hello to the vigorous Hablitzia (at the back) and neighbour Good King Henry / Stolt Henrik at the front, two of the 80 plants in my book Around the World in 80 plants (the book has a picture of this Hablitzia later in the summer!)!

A full house of a mixed crowd of all ages, some 70 people, had turned up for my lecture at the Botanical Garden in Oslo despite the beautiful evening (we should have been outside) and the long holiday weekend! Thanks to the Norwegian Botanical Associtation and Natural History Museum for putting on this event and in particular Honorata Gajda.
Back home now after a night on the train…a fantastic week on the road, thanks to all the people who helped along the way….and some 60 books lighter :)

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