Saturday was a great day with the garden full of Austrians and to make them feel at home I took them to the steepest parts of my garden 😊. Two years ago, I toured Austria giving talks for the seed saver organisation Arche Noah and the highlight was my visit hosted by Thomas Strubreiter and his wife Michi who have built an amazing ecodwelling / earthship with turf roof. A series is currently airing on Austrian television showing its construction and a short program “Das-hobbithaus in Salzburg” can be seen here: https://www.servus.com/tv/videos/aa-1vr7rebsw1w12/
It is located high in the mountains above Salzburg surrounded by alpine meadows and beautiful Lake Seewald. I gave a talk in the mountain restaurant Auerhütte, owned by the family and located nearby http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11483. Thomas and family have dedicated themselves to preserving rare breeds of farm animals, their connection to Arche Noah who also work with rare breeds! See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=11499
We talked about them visiting Malvik at some time, but it still came as a surprise to get a FB message from a very good friend of theirs, Birgit, who was living in Jämtland in Sweden, a 4 hour drive from here that Thomas and Michi were visiting and wondered if they could visit! They were here for a few hours on Saturday, a powerful meeting with a lot of laughter! Their turf roof will now have Norwegian roof onions from Gudbrandsdalen!
I made a presentation about my visit to Austria and Arche Noah in June at the “Seed for the future” seminar in Oslo last week! The presentation can be downloaded below. The seminar was organized by the Network for Plant diversity (Nettverk for Plantemangfold) which comprises the following organisations Oikos – Økologisk Norge, Biologisk-Dynamisk Forening, Solhatt Økologisk Hagebruk, Norsk Senter for Økologisk Landbruk (NORSØK), KVANN / Norwegian Seed Savers, Århus Andelsgård and Økologisk Spesialkorn og Sogn Jord- og Hagebruksskole (SJH). The seminar was supported by Landbruksdirektoratet (The Norwegian Agriculture Agency)
A summary of the seminar and all the presentations can be found here http://www.oikos.no/aktuelt/fro-for-framtida
The genus Hosta is just about my favourite vegetable as you can read in my book Around the World in 80 plants, productive, tasty and perfect for a forest garden as it doesn’t mind deep shade! I did a walk and talk at the Botanischer Garten der Universität Wien as part of my tour organised by Arche Noah in mid-June 2017. To my great surprise, there was a Hosta installation in the garden and a large collection of species Hosta! It turns out that the genus Hosta was named after Austrian botanist Nikolaus Host (1761-1834) and he managed a garden on the site of the botanical garden until his death!
From the garden’s web site: “On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Nikolaus Thomas Host (1761-1834). A group of students of the class for landscape design, under the supervision of the British artist and landscape designer Tony Heywood, is working on a “horticultural installation” for the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna.”
Here’s a series of pictures from the installation “Hosta Superstar” and a long bed of species Hosta!
All Hostas are edible.
This was the highlight of my guided tour of the garden which ended at the Hosta installation.
It was unknown to the garden that Hosta are edible and the director was excited of this new dimension to the garden…perhaps there will be a Hosta tasting next spring!
The Hosta Superstar Installation
On the window of the greenhouse installation there is a list of plants credited to Host (bold), there are many others (non-bold) that turned out to be synonyms!
Mission accomplished! I arrived here in Austria over a week ago! 3 garden tours and two seminars on and I’m now sitting with some porcini pasta and some Austrian beer in Saltzburg before my train back to Vienna and home tomorrow. After 7 hours in Saltzburg, I still haven’t heard any Mozart or The Sound of Music! Thanks to Arche Noah for inviting me
My last gig in Austria was a tour in the young botanical garden in Saltzburg. Despite its youth (from 1986), it had one of the best collection of unusual edibles I’ve seen in a dedicated garden to the world’s cultural plants! Of course the ornamental beds also had a lot of food…
The garden entrance
Right next to the gate was a bed full of edibles like Allium moly, various Lilium species, Dahlia and Camassia
Allium giganteum
The following pictures are from the cultural garden collection
Peltaria alliaceae
Orychophragmus violaceus
Sea kale, Cramb meyeniie maritima
Perennial buckwheat, Fagopyrum cymosum
Hibiscus acetosella (with a pleasant sour taste)
Zingiber mioga, Japanese ginger
Maca, Lepidium meyenii
Canna indica
Gynura crepioides
Plantago coronopus
Altananthera sissoo
And now some other edibles in the garden, Gunnera (probably manicata)…we talked about Nalca, the slighty smaller Chilean Gunnera chilensis
Aralia elata
Polygonum hydropiper, marked poisonous! Really?
Horseradish….apfelkren!
Begonia flowers are edible, this was a demonstration of Begonia breeding
A few pictures from my first three days in Schiltern and Austrian Seed Savers organisation Arche Noah’s amazing show gardens. The main show gardens are in the village of Schiltern in Langenlois, an important wine growing area, with warm, dry summers and relatively mild winters.
I’m doing a series of talks and garden guided tours this week starting here in Schiltern, then Vienna and finally in the Alps near Salzburg!
…and I got to try one of these broadforks! This one had been handmade for Arche Noah!
Seed art at the gate!
The show gardens are in the grounds of an old cloister..
The sales area has a great selection with many perennial edibles including Crithmum, Angelica dahurica etc.!
Purple mitsuba for sale
Angelica dahurica for sale
Caraway (karve) on sale
Hosta on sale as a perennial vegetable!
Toona sinensis
Sea kale (Crambe maritima)
Hablitzia tamnoides
Curly whirly onions, Allium senescens var glaucum
Crithmum maritimum
Rumex scutatus glaucus
Impressive elderberry with my host Claudia and organiser of my tour! Thank you!!
Bee hive
Library
Great outdoors restaurant
Lunch: risotto with an old grain! Did they make a special effort for me?
Isolation tent!
Perennial rye (from, I think, Tim Peters)
Old fruit trees
The countryside and village…
A demonstration of breeding lettuces
Sea Kale on one of two perennial beds
Asphodeline lutea…edible flowers and the tubers were traditionally cooked and eaten with cooked figs by the ancient Greeks and Romans according to Cornucopia II
Scorzonera for seed
Diplotaxis erucoides (wasabi rocket) has an excellent wasabi like taste
Winterkefe pea is one I’ve grown for several years (originally over winter in my old greenhouse). It originates here at Arche Noah
A row of Hablitzia is growing slowly and is maybe not too happy in the heat… shadier place would probably be better!
Catawissa onion (etasjeløk)
Rumex scutatus glauca
Oxyria digyna, mountain sorrel seems to grow well in the lowlands too!
Nice to see Sideritis syriaca, Greek mountain tea in the herb garden
Arch Noah seed packets in the shop
Allium moly (gul-løk) is from the mountains of Spain and is a great edimental
My talk was on Sunday in the cloister buildings
Typha (cattails / dunkjevle) in the courtyard pond! Supermarket of the swamps!
New friends after the talk..chef Johan Reisinger top left, Wolfgang Palme top right (vegetable researcher at the Horticultural College and Research Institute Schönbrunn, Vienna) and his good lady Angelika Palme who did an excellent job at translating!!
On Monday 12th June, I joined an informative tour of the Arche Noah show gardens lead by the head gardener. The tour was for staff and guides.
Nettle water with perennial kale Ewiger kohl (Eeuwige moes)
Chick peas
Broad beans are difficult to grow due to a number of pests and diseases
Millet for a future drier cilmate
I also visited the seed bank…
Humidity instrument for checking that the humidity is low enough for long term storage
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Seeds are both stored in sealed jars…
Arche Noah are in the course of changing database (Access) as they have outgrown it!
I’m really looking forward to doing 5 events in Austria for seed saver organisation Arche Noah from 11th -17th June! Their latest April magazine contains the following good looking article with, I’m assuming some good words too ;)
