Garden tour, Talks Valdres August 9, 2017 Stephen Barstow Leave a comment Pictures from my visit to Valdres….. My host Bente Brenna in Valdres Sopp og Nyttevekstforbund rents out rooms on her property right in the middle of Fagernes! Her garden contains a nice collection of Edimentals including Angelia archangelica (kvann)…one of which had the characters of Vossakvann (filled stems) I stayed in the flat on the ground floor… Lilies and an unusual looking rhubarb with lovage (løpstikke) and horseradish (pepperrot) behind I was surprised to find Allium cernuum (Nodding onion / prærieløk) in a bed…until she reminded me that she had been part of the Grønttreff in my garden last summer: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=5149 Hops / humle Hops / humle On the way up to the mountain area, Vaset where I would give my talk, we stopped off in this old garden (we had been given permission to visit the garden to look for edimentals after my talk if it was interesting enough… Hops also here. In Norway, in the year 940 the Frostatingsloven (one of Norway’s oldest laws) made it illegal to steal hops or apples! In the Middle Ages and until the mid-18th century farm owners had to cultivate a certain amount of hops. Hops were primarily used for beer brewing, but also medicinally! For this reason, there are many old hop plants in Norway and it has also naturalised in woods in some places! Angelica and hops Stabbur or food store Arriving at Skikroa (the skiing cafe) where the talk was to be held! View from skikroa…there are many cabins in this area! There was a festival the same weekend at Vaset and the local useful plant society had arranged a fungal foray (not much to find though as it had been so dry) On the way back down to visit another garden with the course participants! Hosta and ostrich fern (strutseving) near the garden entrance…a new garden with “ornamentals”, vegetables and herbs! A bracket fungus / kjuke Day lily / daglilje Ligularia (The Rocket?), but probably not a good edible variety Meum athamaticum (spignel meu/ bjørnerot) is a very common hardy herb in Norwegian gardens Catawissa onion? Etasjeløk… The garden owner.. Hardnecked garlic introduced by local man Anders Nordrum (see datsja.no) was also growing in Bente’s garden! Parsnip and pastinakk grow well here Utilising the space on a rocky slope to growing veggies View from the garden ..and hops here too! We popped in to Bente’s CSA (andelsbruk) to collect some veggies for dinner A polish family were growing broad beans Before I took the bus to Voss, I did a little cultural walk near the centre of town Puffball (røyksopp) and dandelion Neselvi, the water drains from the mountains a Neselvi Fagernes hydro station… Electricity came here in 1911.. Campanula trachelium Pictures from my visit to Valdres…..