Tag Archives: Sweden

Nut pod interview at Åfallet

August 23, 2025 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

In the middle of July I was at the Åfallet Food Forest Festival in Sweden to give a talk about perennial vegetables (more about that in a separate post). There I met Göran Christiansson of the webshop NötTräd and Nötverket, the Swedish network for everyone who wants to contribute to making nuts a natural part of the Swedish food landscape and transforming the food system! He also has a podcast which was started in March this year and I agreed to do an interview with him on my experience with growing nuts next to the Trondheim Fjord. We sat down in one of the trial forest garden plots at Åfallet on a warm summer day surrounded by hazel trees.
You can listen in to the conversation here:
https://sites.libsyn.com/571825/stephen-barstow-edimentalscom-in-english

Garden tour

Edible Gothenburg

October 28, 2024 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

On my way back from the Future Heirloom event in Copenhagen, I had a few hours between trains to visit one of my favourite Botanical gardens in Gothenburg, Sweden, Göteborgs botaniska trädgård. Apart from a very short visit on my way to Austria and the UK by train in January 2020, the last time I had visited was on 30th August 2017 when I did an edibles walk and talk with my friend Bosse Blomquist (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=13658). Afterwards, I did two talks (as the first was sold out) and even got to stay the night in the flat in the gardens!
Thanks again to Johan Nilson for showing me around behind the scenes and telling me about the big changes happening at the gardens with new glasshouses being built where the old ones had been!
Below are pictures of edible plants I spotted in the gardens during my latest visit:

The garden entrance: easily accessible by tram from the railway station

Sorbus ulleungensis: this endemic to Ulleung-do Island between Korea and Japan. It has large quite sweet berries. I hadn’t noticed that there was a row of this species planted next to the garden entrance! The garden had collected this and other species from an exhibition there (see my article on Dystaenia takesimana here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Dystaenia_fin-3.pdf)

Rubus parviflorus (labelled as Rubus nutkanus), the Western Thimbleberry; I planted this at the Væres Venners Community Garden this summer.

Allium scabriscapum in the bulb house is a beautiful yellow flowered species.

Umbilicus tropaeolifolius in the bulb house

Allium oschaninii is a crop near relative to Allium cepa and was traditionally wild foraged

Beautiful autumn foliage of Hosta “Harry van Trier”

A decent sized Toona sinensis (Chinese mahogany, Chinese cedar, Chinese toon, beef and onion plant or red toon) is widely cultivated in the Far East for its young shoots which have an oniony taste due to the presence of organosulfur compounds; a popular tree in permaculture / forest gardening (I didn’t see any shoots coming up around the tree)

Corylus fargesii (Chinese Hazel) has a tree form like Turkish Hazel.

PInus armandii var mastersiana is the Taiwanese form of Chinese White Pine, one of the sources of commercial pine nuts.

Smilax china (see https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Smilax+china)

Asclepias exaltata (poke milkweed) has shoots resembling pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. Some species of milkweed including this one are considered edible, eaten boiled and in moderation.

Rudbeckia laciniata (sochan, Cherokee greens): Samuel Thayer recommends in particular the autumn broader and blunter leaves (I’ve never seen this in my gardens)

The wonderful rock garden area (Klippträdgården) is my favourite area of the garden with many perennial vegetables I’ve not seen elsewhere! Plants are organised geographically.

Oemleria cerasiformis, Indian plum, Osoberry: I don’t remember seeing this in other botanical gardens in Europe

One patch of spreading Allium wallichii!

Saxifraga fortunei: my friend @aiahnoack in Denmark calls this tempura greens from its use

Allium ulleungense: good to see that the garden has followed the recent changes, splitting the Allium victorialis into 5 species!

Cephalotaxus harringtonii var nana (yew plum)

Pinus koraiensis, an important source of pine nuts

Patrinia gibbosa seed (some Patrinia species are foraged for the shoots in Japan, but are a little too bitter for me)

The Japanese Dell is my favourite area of the garden. There are some 500 species planted here and many (1/3?) are edible plants (so-called sansai)a

Another spreading Allium wallichii accession

Staphylea colchica is a bladder nut from the Caucasus (the young shoots are more useful )

Papaw (Asimina triloba) has, I’ve heard, produced ripe fruit in this area

Report

PROMOTING PERENNIAL VEGETABLES IN THE SWEDISH FOOD SUPPLY

December 21, 2023 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

In recent years, vegetable growers have started to open their eyes to perennial vegetables and quite a few are growing several types. Many more growers are curious and interested, but haven’t got started yet.

Now you can download the report put together by Eva Johansson, Annevi Sjöberg and Johanna Karlén through visits and interviews with growers of perennial vegetables all over the Nordics, including my 3 gardens in Trondheim / Malvik in June.

See https://perennagronsaker.se and click on the link! NB! In Swedish!

(Nice that the Onion Garden Chicago made the front page!)

Seminar

Promoting Perennial Vegetables seminar

September 19, 2023 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

Earlier this summer (23rd May; https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31209) 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). Link to my blog post in comments.
Everyone can now take part via zoom in a one-day seminar on this topic by signing up here (it’s free and some of the talks are in English!): https://perennagronsaker.se/seminarium-framja-flerariga-gronsaker-i-svensk-matproduktion-16-oktober
The project is financed with funds from the Swedish Agency for Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) within the framework of the Swedish food strategy (den svenska livsmedelsstrategin) and runs until Dec 2023. The Skillebyholm Foundation manages the project.
As usual, Sweden is way ahead of Norway with innovation!

Forest Gardening

Barstow’s Lund near Lund

January 28, 2018 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment

I was just sent this picture from my visit to Holma Forest Garden in Southern Sweden <3 (https://www.facebook.com/SkogstradgardensVanner) on 1st September 2017….. I am very happy to be greeting the sign of Barstow’s Lund for the very first time….Lund means “Copse or small wood” in Swedish and they have planted as many as possible of the plants in my book in this part of this the oldest forest garden in Sweden! Holma is next to a small place with the wonderful name Höör which isn’t far from the city of Lund, so this is Barstow’s Lund near Lund….
For English speakers Lund is pronounced “Loond” as in loony ;)

Garden tour, Permaculture

Visiting the Koster Islands

March 14, 2016 Stephen Barstow 4 Comments

Really looking forward to visiting the beautiful tranquil Koster Islands again at the end of April and Helena von Bothmer‘s permaculture centre and gardens there. See the following FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1567806430183747

Here are a few pictures from my last trip two years ago, just for a visit…
More about the Koster Islands here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koster_Islands