I spent a couple of hours in Muséhagen (the old botanical garden) in the centre of Bergen before taking the train to Oslo on Sunday and spent the time edimentals spotting amongst all the sun-worshippers, a strange experience in a town best known for its rain…
Sweet cicely (spansk kjørvel) is a “noxious weed ” (svartelistet), but also one of the best edible introductions to our flora, only invasive as we eat too little of it ;)
Hostas
My favourite formal part of Muséhagen is this bed with Hostas and Gunnera tinctoria from South America, both in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
One of Norway’s tallest Ginkgo trees, but alone it will have a hard job producing ginkgo nuts!
A splendid clump of Allium victorialis (victory onion / seiersløk)
A splendid clump of Allium victorialis (victory onion / seiersløk) towering over Egyptian onion to the left
Camassia cusickii
Camassia cusickii
A large clump of hybrid Trillium
Hemerocallis dumortieri is an early flowering species
A hybrid day lily to the left with much smaller Hemerocallis dumortieri to the right
Marshmallow (legestokkrose)
Asparagus, asparges
Gaultheria shallon
Rudbeckia (a vegetable used by native americans)
Tropaeolum polyphyllum
Darmera peltata
Hosta planted with conifers
An area with Myrrhis odorata, sweet cicely
Invasive claytonia sibirica
Hostas
Hostas
Hostas
Hostas
Pignut / jordnøtt was also growing wild in the garden
The main reason for my visit to Bergen was the Saturday course on perennial vegetables for the organisation Bærekraftig Liv (literally Sustainable Living). We had perfect weather for the day which started with a beginners course followed by foraging around the garden of Landås hovedgård (lysthus), a historical building where Edvard Grieg spent much of his youth! The afternoon session was my normal Around the World talk. Bærekraftig Liv have a long term lease here in collaboration with Bergen kommune where the gardens and house will be restored! https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land%C3%A5s_hovedg%C3%A5rd
A great mixed crowd of folk turned up and, yes, I’d love to come back next year!
Perennials can be a partial solution to the problem that Bergen has with the Iberian slug (brunsnegl) which disillusions many new vegetable gardeners in Bergen!
Landås Hovedgård
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
Plant sales table…with many perennial edibles
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind)
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
We harvested Tilia (lime /lind) leaves for the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Day liy (daglilje) flower buds were also used in the salad
Landås Hovedgård
Felleshage (community garden)
Liv Karin Lund Thomassen introduction to Landås Hovedgård
One of the participants showed me this Hablitzia being sold commercialy locally under its Swedish name, rankespinat
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway. The area was until just a few years ago spruce forest, but when it was felled, an agreement was struck with the kommune in 2013 for the organisation Bærekraftig Liv (literally, Sustainable Living) to develop the area as a food forest (matskog). I have long wanted to visit, so was happy to finally get to spend a day there with food forest enthusiasts Lars Ove Kvalbein, Benedicte Brun and others during my May 2018 visit to Bergen to give a course for Bærekraftig Liv!
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway.
The path we took up to the food forest was along a seasonal stream bed…..
The grindabygg is a traditional building technique from western Norway
Benedicte gave a tour of this still young food forest (here with my friend David Woodland from Hardanger who it turns out grew up just a few kilometres from me in England!)
Benedicte has done a great job in the food forest and contributed many hours!
A perennial tree kale (tree collard)
North American salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis is an invasive plant in Western Norway and is already growing in the food forest!
Ostrich Fern (strutseving) has been planted!
Preparations for growing shiitake and oyster mushroom
Hosta
Zanthoxylum schinifolium, one of the sources of Sichuan pepper
The lads cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus) harvested from the food forest! It’s a common wild plant in western Norway
Lars Ove Kvalbein cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus)
Pignuts (jordnøtt)
Pignuts (jordnøtt) being roasted
The roasted pignuts were delicious
We didn’t have enough plates, so Hosta leaves were used as wraps for the salad!
A swarm of bees was discovered near to an area with bee hives…
Landås matskog (food forest) is situated under Mount Ulriken in Bergen, Norway.
The grindabygg is a traditional building technique from western Norway
A perennial tree kale (tree collard)
Benedicte gave a tour of this still young food forest (here with my friend David Woodland from Hardanger who it turns out grew up just a few kilometres from me in England!)
Zanthoxylum schinifolium, one of the sources of Sichuan pepper
Benedicte has done a great job in the food forest and contributed many hours!
Ostrich Fern (strutseving) has been planted!
Preparations for growing shiitake and oyster mushroom
North American salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis is an invasive plant in Western Norway and is already growing in the food forest!
Hosta
The lads cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus) harvested from the food forest! It’s a common wild plant in western Norway
Pignuts (jordnøtt)
Lars Ove Kvalbein cleaning pignuts (Conopodium majus)
A swarm of bees was discovered near to an area with bee hives…
Pignuts (jordnøtt) being roasted
The roasted pignuts were delicious
We didn’t have enough plates, so Hosta leaves were used as wraps for the salad!
The path we took up to the food forest was along a seasonal stream bed…..
I didn’t take many pictures on Sunday’s guided garden tour at the botanical garden in Bergen at Milde, but here are a few! I was very impressed in particular by the Andean vegetables including mauka and maca! Thanks to Heidi Lie Anderson, Bjørn Moe and, in particular, skilled Andean gardener in Bergen, Bodil Oma!
It was also great to have the chance to harvest and share the Gunnera (Nalca) leaf stalk….the verdict was that it was surprisingly good, sweetly acid flavour! Here’s an album of pictures I took of the amazing Nalca food forests of Chiloe Island in Chile (including being shown by a local how to eat it!): http://www.edimentals.com/pictures/index.php?/category/10
We were very pleased that over 100 people turned up for the Milde edimentals tour and all my heavy load of books were sold out!
Introduction and welcome from the garden’s Heidi Lie Andersen
After we sampled the Gunnera tinctoria from Chile (surprisingly tasty said several who tried!), and Vossakvann (the heirloom Norwegian selection of Angelica archangelica), we moved on to the South American garden where we saw an impressive bed of Mauka (Mirabilis expansa) with edible tubers and leaves!
The MACA (Lepidium peruvianum) also had impressively large roots! We also saw and talked about quinoa, Oca, Madeira vine and Canna edulis and Oca, before finishing with the multiple uses of caraway and, finally, Allium victorialis which has a large naturalised population at Granvin in Hardanger!
After the talk some of us went to Blondehuset in a different part of the garden for refreshments and nearby we found a nice patch of udo (Aralia cordata)
…and there were other edimentals in full flower, this diverse group of Hordalanders posed for me in front of a flowering Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk) a great forest garden edible (Aralia elata) from the Far East!
Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk)
Devil’s Walking Stick (Fandens spaserstokk) self-seeded (?) in a rock crack!
Chuño, Andean freeze-dried potatoes!
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=677
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
