Tag Archives: kjerringrokk

Permaveggies Course Day 3: Ostrich fern tour along the Homla

As usual, the highlight of these weekends is the incredible walk along the river Homla just 20 minutes from home with large quantities of Ostrich Fern along the way, truly one of Norway’s most beautiful plants and also most delicious!!

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Storfossen (literally large waterfall!), the second highest waterfall at 40m in our region (Trøndelag). There’s a total fall of 80m in 3 waterfalls. If you’re lucky you can see salmon trying to climb the lowest of the 3!
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Participants showering in the drizzle from the waterfall stood in awe of this wonderfull sight, so close to Trondheim, but hardly known! We saw only a handful of other people on the trail in 4 hours!

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We found a few fungi. This is Fomitopsis pinicola / rødrandkjuke

Basidioradulum radula (Tannsopp), earlier classified with the Hedgehog fungi!

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Christian thinking about going for a swim?

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Happy participants, HIGH on nature and wild food!
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Happy participants, HIGH on nature and wild food!
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This dandelion was collected as it had a good mild taste!
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Ostrich fern / Strutseving
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Ostrich fern / Strutseving
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One of the confusion species that shouldn’t be eaten! With Anemone nemerosa (wood anemone / hvitveis) and Chrysosplenium alternifolium (Golden saxifrage/maigull)
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Roof garden!

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There’s a lot of up and downs along the 4 hour walk (with stops) from Storfossen to Hommelvik!

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Everyone stopped in awe again at this beautiful rich stand of ostrich ferns which had come much further than in the cold air by the river
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We found this Swede communing with the ferns
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…Berit had a go too…next year we will have a group ostrich fern hug I think!

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Hidden among the ferns are other edibles like nettle / nesle and giant bellflower (Campanula latifolia)

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Fomitopsis pinicola / rødrandkjuke

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The field horsetail/ common horsetail / kjerringrokk / (Equisetum arvense) is another sign of spring. The plant is known as sugina (杉菜) in Japanese, literally “cryptomeria vegetable”, possibly from the appearance of the green stems. The fertile stems at the stage shown are known as tsukushi (土筆). The ideograms literally mean “soil brush”, based on their shape. A common foraged vegetable in spring!! DON’T plant it in your garden, it is one of the most invasive plants on open land! BUT, one shouldn’t use large amounts…this is a spring vegetable used in a short period in spring!!
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Knuskkjuke (Fomes fomentarius) is the tinder fungus used to start a fire!
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Upon returning home we made a green pasta sauce with ostrich ferns (cooked for 15 minutes), Hablitzia shoots, Norrlands onion (see my book) for all 3), soaked dried chantarelles, organic tomatoes, garlic, chili, seasoned with cuban oregano, bay leaves and served over a choice of hemp pasta and emmer wheat pasta from Etikken in Trondheim!