Clematis vitalba (old man’s beard / tysk klematis) is an important wild edible in Italy (young shoots which must be cooked) and also one of the most attractive plants in my garden for hoverflies and other pollinators! Saving seed this week from my 20+ year old seed propagated plant which provides me with a lot of entertainment (hoverfly watching on my balcony)!
Last weekend I attended this symposium in Stans (near Lucerne) with a diverse group of people including farmers, decision makers, bankers, investors, NGOs, students, landscape architects, writers, international organisations, chefs, plant breeders, university researchers, syntropic farmers, permaculturists etc. to discuss the role of perennials in what more and more people are seeing as a necessary paradigm shift in agriculture in the face of climate change and dwindling resources.
The program: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a574020b078696d379ca25e/t/5ab04a9288251bfd948ffe44/1521502868186/Program+PerennialsConference+7.Apr18.pdf
Jugendstil-Hotel Paxmontana in Flüeli-Ranft was where we were accomodated :) We arrived here in true Harry Potter style as the station (platform) where we had to get a connecting bus here didn’t seem to exist. At the next station where we asked a railway employee…a bus miraculously appeared going to the hotel which the official managed to flag down!
The magic bus…me, Joe Hollis and a few other delegates!
The site of the symposium: Kapuzinerkloster & Garten in Stans
The symposium was very well attended with around 100 people despite no real marketing!
Myself and Joe Hollis helped out foraging perennial food for the symposium!
It was an honour to meet the Mountain Gardener Joe Hollis in person, such a wise and gentle person :) I’d encourage you to watch his Youtube videos (includes Udo, Aralia cordata) about many of the plants he grows in his paradise gardens! See https://www.youtube.com/user/mountaingardens/videos
Sonchus, sow thistle
Plenty of nettles
Wild onion, probably Allium vineale
Hedge garlic (Alliaria)
Nettles and ground elder
Organiser and initiator Matthias Brück
We ate lunch at the restaurant in the middle of the Nature park….the waiter and owner was bemused by us augmenting their rather boring salad :)
Billed as the Perennial Life Experience symposium food, it was for most attendees!
Perennial Ryotto! Similar to Norwegian Svedjerug, so not truly perennial…
It was a beauiful spring weekend weatherwise and food and breakout sessions were held outside!
The author Dominic Flammer is also the curator of the Kapuzinerkloster & Garten which is currently under restoration.This will be a wonderful place for courses when it’s restored! He’s written several books including the wonderful Culinary Herbs of the Alps!!
Katharina Serafimova wraps up the final breakout session to discuss how to take this forward!
Malva syrup
Dandelion wine
Menu for the first dinner at the hotel
View from the hotel
While I was visiting Pro Specie Rara in Basel, Joe Hollis joined the others foraging ramsons which grows like a weed in Zurich and is common on the hills around!
While I was visiting Pro Specie Rara in Basel, Joe Hollis joined the others foraging ramsons which grows like a weed in Zurich and is common on the hills around!
Campanula
Galium
Path down to the river
Primula veris x vulgaris hybrid?
Primula veris
Heracleum
Taraxacum
Viola
Hepatica (not edible)
Veronica beccabunga
Nettles
Barbarea vulgaris
Fallopia (Japanese knotweed)
Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis)
Primula vulgaris
Sanguisorba minor
Aegopodium
Spring heath (Erica carnea)
Long distance paths
Chapel by the river
Primula vulgaris
More symposium food
The view from the symposium
Another dandelion product
Joe Hollis
I was chuffed to sign Joe Hollis’ copy of my book and to see that he had made so many notes!
A bed right outside the venue with a contorted hazel full of ramsons (Allium ursinum)
The venue in Stans
View from a hike above Stans
I saw this potential edimental Phyteuma spicata (?) in two places
One of the breakout sessions was based on two of us so-called “pioneers” telling our story as to how we became perennial vegetable growers. I was one. It was strange sitting in a room with groups discussing and analyzing my “case” ;)
There are still many undiscovered (in the west) perennial edibles in the Far East. I’m therefore now concentrating mainly on that area in this quest. This spring I will travel for 3 weeks in Japan as part of this work. Another “country” with a rich diversity of food plants is Korea. With help from my Norwegian / Korean friend Misoni Sandvik whom I mention in my book, and who is on her own quest to find and grow wild herbs she remembers foraging when she was a child in South Korea, I’ve received two books from Korea today entitled “The Wild Greens of Korea” and “The Medicinal Herb of Korea”. There’s often a diffuse boundary between food and medicine in Korea, so the second book is also relevant, including plants like Aralia cordata (Udo)!
Aralia cordata (Udo)
Aster scaber (Korean Asters), the plant that lead to Misoni contacting me as related in my book, a plant she was looking for that I had on my seed list!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
