Engelsk tekst nederst I løpet av 17.-19. juli var jeg glad for å kunne returnere gjestfriheten gitt av KVANNs søsterorganisasjon Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) under mine 2 turer dit i 2017 og januar 2020 rett før COVID-en rammet (se https://www.edimentals .com/blog/?s=arche+noah) Dette var i forbindelse med et Erasmus pluss utdanningsprogram der Arche Noah-utdanningen besøker ulike steder i Europa for å lære mer om flerårige grønnsaker og skogshager! Vi besøkte hver av mine 3 hager: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Felleshagen og Løkhagen Chicago ved NTNU Ringve Botaniske Hagen. Vi fikk selskap av Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen og Judit Fehér fra KVANNs styre (bilde). Ursula Taborsky fra Arche Noah er nest til venstre på bildet fra min spiselige (skogs)hage. English: During 17th-19th July I was happy to be able to return the hospitality given by KVANN’s sister organisation Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) during my 2 trips there in 2017 and January 2020 just before COVID hit (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=arche+noah) This was in connection with an Erasmus plus education program in which Arche Noah education are visiting various places in Europe to learn more about perennial vegetables and forest gardening! We visited each of my 3 gardens: The Edible Garden, Væres Venners Community Garden and the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden. We were joined by Guri Bugge, Mette Theisen and Judit Fehér from KVANN’s board (picture). Ursula Taborsky from Arche Noah is second left in the picture from my Edible (Forest) Garden.
The Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim, Norway contains over 100 Allium species and over 400 different accessions including a collection of old Norwegian onions which I collected across the country with support from the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre and the Norwegian Agricultural Authority. You can safely eat all Alliums and most species have in the past been wild foraged. A few do have an unpleasant taste, but most are good to eat including some of the best-known ornamental onions, some of the best edimentals (combined food and beauty) and edi-ento-mentals: also a very popular genus for pollinators like bumble bees. Members of KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) in Norway can order most of the Alliums grown in the garden each autumn (please support us by becoming a member at https://kvann.no/bli-med) These are the 40 main Alliums I talk about, in order of appearance: Allium cernuum (nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium cernuum “Alan Kapuler”(nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium canadense Allium fistulosum (rooftop onion; takløk from the Gudbrandsdalen valley) a) From Søre Kleivmellomsæter, Mysusæter in Rondane at 885m asl b) From Nordre Geitsida, Sel municipality Allium cyathophorum var. cyathophorum Allium hymenorhizum Allium insubricum Allium validum (Pacific or swamp onion from California) Allium scorodoprasum (sand leek; bendelløk – garlic derives from old norse geirlauk meaning spear onion as demonstrated) Allium tricoccum (ramps) Allium caeruleum “Bulbilliferous form” Allium wallichii (Sherpa or Nepal onion) Allium senescens (Siberian onion) Allium fistulosum (Welsh onion; pipeløk) from Skedsmokorset, Akershus Allium sativum (hardneck / serpent garlic; slangehvitløk) Allium victorialis “Cantabrica” from northern Spain (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium victorialis “Røst, Norway” from the island in the Lofoten Islands in Norway (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium x proliferum “Catawissa onion” (topset, Egyptian or walking onions; luftløk, etasjeløk) Allium pskemense (tower onion; tårnløk) Allium pskemense x fistulosum “Wietse’s onion” Allium ochotense from Japan (earlier Allium victorialis) Allium carolinianum Allium moly (golden garlic, lily leek; gull-løk) Allium caesium Allium schoenoprasum (chives; gressløk) – deadheaded Allium douglasii (Douglas’ onion; Douglasløk) Allium cernuum “Dwarf White” (nodding onion; Chicago onion; prærieløk) Allium prattii x ovalifolium? (Chinese hybrid) Allium galanthum Allium rotundum Allium schoenoprasum subsp. sibiricum “Hokkaido” – later flowering than other chives Allium ovalifolium var. leuconeurum Allium flavum subsp. flavum var. minus (small yellow onion; doggløk) Allium ramosum Allium stipitatum (Persian shallots; Persisk sjalott) Allium maximowiczii var shibutsuense f. album Allium victorialis “Landegode, Nordland, Norway” (Victory onion; seiersløk) Allium nutans “Lena” (Siberian nodding onion; Sibirsk nikkeløk) Allum lenkoranicum
I don’t often post here about my other two gardens, the community garden at Væres Venner and the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim. The onion garden is nicely maturing and will be officially opened this summer on 26th August, 6 years since I started work creating a garden to house a national collection of old Norwegian perennial vegetable onions collected throughout the country, some 100 botanical species from around the world and many cultivars too! Here’s a couple of videos showing the garden on 25th June 2023 close to peak flowering, although there will be flowering Alliums all the way from May to the first heavy frosts in October / November! Tasty, beautiful and a great place to study pollinators! Can you smell it? There are now over 500 pictures from the garden in this large Facebook album
We’ve had a lovely 3 day visit this last weekend from artist Elin Eriksen from Nesodden starting a project based on my perennial vegetables. She sketched and photographed candidate plants in all 3 of my gardens, The Edible Garden, Ringve Botanical Gardens Onion Garden and the World Garden at Væres Venner! We look forward to seeing the results!
Elin has earlier created a poster of birds for Birdlife Norway (also for kids) and recently lead a course in botanical drawing for Sopp og Nyttevekstforbund at Valdres.
Photographing in the Onion Garden Chicago Fotografering i Løkhagen Chicago
Sketching in the Onion Garden Chicago Skissering i Løkhagen Chicago
Wietse’s onion in the Onion Garden Chicago Wietsesløk i Løkhagen Chicago ved Ringve Allium pskemense x fistulosum
Documenting perennial vegetables in the World Garden in the Væres Venner community garden at Ranheim! Dokumentering av flerårige grønnsaker i Verdenshagen hos Væres Venners Felleshagen på Ranheim
Relaxing with a multispecies perennial vegetable quiche in The Edible Garden!
On Tuesday 23rd May I spent a great few hours together with Eva Johansson and Annevi Sjöberg from Sweden in my 3 gardens. They were on a fact-finding mission in connection with the project ”Främja fleråriga grönsaker i svensk matförsörjning” (Promoting perennial vegetables in the Swedish food supply). The project Främja fleråriga grönsaker i svensk matförsörjning is financed with funds from the Swedish Agency for Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) within the framework of the Swedish food strategy (den svenska livsmedelsstrategin). The project runs until Dec 2023. The Skillebyholm Foundation manages the project. Jen from Nottingham in the UK was visiting this week to help and learn, thanks to an RHS bursary! She joined us on the trip and can also be seen in the pictures below!
Jen, Eva and Annevi were on an Allium-high after spending time in the Onion Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim :)Me with Eva, Jen and Annevi in the Edible GardenSampling Hablitzia tamnoides shoots in my garden
It’s always a pleasure to spend time with students from the Fosen Folk High School from the other side of the fjord. Despite the dreadful weather, we visited all 3 of my sites – the onion garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens followed by the Væres Venners Community Garden and, finally, my own garden The Edible Garden (this is the first time I’ve taken a group to all 3 sites!). Those that took part were two of the “lines”: The Self-sufficiency line and the The Organic Farming line (small scale). The Organic Farming line were only on the first two visits, so the picture only shows the Self-sufficiency folk!
I’d sent a few bulbs of twisted-leaf garlic (Allium obliquum) to members of Norwegian Seed Savers’ (KVANN) guild for Alliums and had a few left overover, so I fried them up for lunch and ate them with cheese on toast. A delicious sweetish taste after heating in olive oil. The onions are also a good size! This was one of the 80 in my book Around the World in 80 plants!
(Note that there is a comment suggesting that this isn’t atroviolaceum and is probably rotundum, although accessions I’ve received as that species are much lower plants; will check in the spring) Allium atroviolaceum is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental. I’ve been growing it for some 15 years now and it is admittedly not very productive as an edimental under my conditions, but it’s nevertheless a beauty and it is currently coming into flower both in my own garden and the Allium garden at the Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim, where the pictures below were taken. Its wild distribution is in the Crimea, Caucasus, Middle Asia (Mountainous Turkmenistan, Syr-Darya foothill areas) and Iran.
In the Armenian Highlands in Eastern Turkey, there are several ethnobotanical studies documenting its use in local food, presumably wild collected, although there are indications that it might also be cultivated for food including: 1) In otlu peyniri, a herbed cheese made out of sheep’s or cow’s milk. it is used as a flavouring along with many other species (from Wikipedia): Ranunculus polyanthemos L.(Ranunculaceae) Nasturtium officinale R. Br. (Brassicaceae) Gypsophila L. spp. (Caryophyllaceae) Silene vulgaris (Maench) Garcke var. vulgaris (Caryophyllaceae) Anthriscus nemorosa (Bieb.) Sprengel (Apiaceae) Carum carvi L. (Apiaceae) Anethum graveolens L. (Apiaceae) Prangos pabularia Lindl. (Apiaceae) Prangos ferulacea (L.) Lind. (Apiaceae) Ferula L. sp. (Apiaceae) Ferula orientalis L. (Apiaceae) Ferula rigidula DC. (Apiaceae) Thymus kotschyanus Boiss. et Hohen. var. glabrescens Boiss. (Lamiaceae) Thymus migricus Klokov et Des. – Shoct. (Lamiaceae) Mentha spicata L. subsp. spicata (Lamiaceae) Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam. (Lamiaceae) Ocimum basilicum L. (Lamiaceae) Eremurus spectabilis Bieb. (Liliaceae) Allium schoenoprasum L. (Liliaceae) Allium fuscoviolaceum Fomin (Liliaceae) Allium scorodoprasum L.subsp. rotundum(L.)Stearn (Liliaceae) Allium aucheri Boiss. (Liliaceae) Allium paniculatum L. subsp. paniculatum (Liliaceae) Allium akaka S. G. Gmelin (Liliaceae) Allium cf. cardiostemon Fisch. et Mey. (Liliaceae) 2) In another study, the young shoots are used in various dishes and as a flavouring with yoghurt. It us used both boiled and raw. The bulbs are used to replace garlic in food. Local names in Turkey include sirmo, körmen, and yabani sarimsak.
19th June 2020: Video update from the Allium (Chicago) garden at the NTNU Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim. The heat wave has brought many species into flower and the garden’s looking great! The official opening of the garden, planned for August, has been postponed to 2021. We are working on plant signs which will hopefully be added later in the summer. The garden currently contains some 300 accessions including around 100 Allium species and many old Norwegian onions collected over several years from all over the country and funded by Norsk Genressurssenteret and Landbruksdirektoratet. The signs for the garden are in part funded through a gift from Skjærgaarden (https://www.skjaergaarden.no) to KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) who have decided to use the gift at Ringve (see https://www.facebook.com/skjaergaarden.no/videos/2972781459487864)
Today at the Ringve Botanical Gardens I found the Allium garden was full of little workers eating the masses of birch seeds that had fallen during the winter….saving me a lot of work later. The first summer, there were thousands of birch seedlings in the garden…
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
English: During 17th-19th July I was happy to be able to return the hospitality given by KVANN’s sister organisation Arche Noah (Austrian Seed Savers) during my 2 trips there in 2017 and January 2020 just before COVID hit (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=arche+noah)
