A couple of helpers cleared the sycamores and Norwegian maples that had grown up again along the lane at the bottom of the garden. Now you can once again see some of the other interesting trees and shrubs in this part of the garden, below the composting area:
From left to right: Carya ovata (shagback hickory), Morus alba (mulberry), Cornus kousa, Rhus typhina (stag’s horn sumach) and, above, my ca. 17 year old Juglans mandschurica, which has been producing (small) nuts since 2012!From left to right: Morus alba (mulberry), Cornus kousa, Rhus typhina (stag’s horn sumach) and, above, my ca. 17 year old Juglans mandschurica, which has been producing (small) nuts since 2012!
At the opening of my garden as a Permaculture LAND centre in the spring, I was given a present of two sweet chestnut trees, a grafted Marigoule tree and a seed propagated Marigoule. Sadly, the grafted tree died but I planted the other tree yesterday next to another sweet chestnut that I think came from a woodland in Southern England in the early 2000s and was planted here in 2008. It has to my great surprise survived even a really cold winter when its roots were frozen solid for almost 4 months and temperatures below -20C:
My oldest sweet chestnut is now 3m tall and growing well after several years stagnating.Seed propagated MarigouleSeed propagated Marigoule planted next to my older chestnut (behind)My Carya ovata (shagback hickory) has grown really slowly. It was a seedling in 2000 and is now about 3m tall, planted here in 2008!
Quercus mongolica (Mongolian oak or the Shandong silk oak)! Did you know that the Chinese not only produce silk from mulberry trees, but also from Mongolian oak trees? The Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, is the worker employed according to Food Plants of China! See https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/10/1/180/887115
The Mongolian oak nuts were also sometimes eaten and the leaves were used for tea, boiled with the fruits of Siberian crabapple, Malus baccata!
Kurrajong is an Australian tree, Brachychiton populneus, which along with other species of the genus make interesting house plants due to their interesting leaves. Kurrajong leaves resemble poplar leaves as the epithet populneus suggests. It’s a common tree of sandy plains in Eastern Australia. The seeds are remarkably nutritious and were popular Aborigine tucker (wild gathered food). It is unlikely I will ever be able to harvest seed of this tree in the Malvaceae (mallow family), but Rowan White on the Radix Root Crops FB group reminded me that the swollen roots of young trees could also be eaten. My tree wasn’t exactly young at 9 years (seed propagated along with Brachychiton acerifolius), when I first decided to have a go in 2012, at the same time as I moved it to a bigger pot…
Brachychiton acerifolius (Illawarra flame tree) is another beautiful tree growing in my living room forest garden….making an attempt to escape…it’s been suggested I make a hole in the ceiling so that it can grow on up into my bedroom where it could flower and produce nuts that I could harvest from bed ;) (this tree is often planted as an ornamental street tree in the tropics, see https://tinyurl.com/yaqnnm65)
Brachychiton acerifolius leaves
There were 3 young roots worth trying so I harvested them and baked them in their skins together with potatoes. They seem to need a bit longer than potatoes. The skins peeled easily off after baking and they were crispy with a good mild taste. If you have a ready supply of seed, they can be grown and harvested a bit like carrots when quite young!
Kurrajong doesn’t often if ever experience snow, here’s my plant with earth removed (December 2012)
The small young roots were harvested
Roots removed, hope it doesn’t kill my tree (it didn’t!)
Ready for baking
After 45 minutes in the oven
They peeled easily
Crispy non-fibrous roots
Kurrajong leaf
Kurrajong leaf
This spring the tree died (at 15 years old) with no sign of life in the above ground parts, but when disposing of the plant I noticed that the young roots looked healthy, so I harvested them and repotted the remainder of the root to see if it might resprout and after several weeks in the window sill it now has fresh leaves, so not dead after all!
I didn’t get round to eat the young roots…they were left inside for a month and looked withered and inedible, but cutting in to one it looked good inside and indeed it was tasty and almost free from fibre….so we ate it in a stir-fry dish last night!
Back in the pre-Facebook days, I remember there was a forum for unusual nut trees and the Norwegian monkey puzzle trees were considered to be the most hardy and I remember receiving a lot of requests from folk wanting seed from our provenience. I had to disappoint them as they weren’t easy to come by……but I did finally get a few seed via a contact from the botanical garden in Bergen who told me that a friend of hers had actually climbed a tree and harvested nuts!!!! Was her friend a monkey? The tree was located in Os, just south of Bergen. They germinated in spring 2007 and I attempted to overwinter outside in a plastic greenhouse open at the top and with a leaf mulch around the roots. I’d heard rumours that larger trees sold from a local nursery for an exorbitant price had survived (never confirmed for my area where winter temperatures can go down to -20C). They survived until mid-March 2008, when I took the picture, but it didn’t make it through a subsequent very cold period I didn’t try again.
Mid-March 2018 in a roofless cold frame in my garden
A minimum of about -15C seems to be about the temperature limit here and this limits the area they can be grown to a narrow strip outermost along almost the entire Norwegian coast it turns out. One of the biggest surprises in my gardening life was to discover a monkey puzzle growing in Skavberg nursery not far from the arctic city of Tromsø close to 70°N!! Owner Bjørn Thon was also growing Maori carrots (Aciphylla spp.) from New Zealand and many other plants I’d never seen before in Norway. Bjørn has been a long-term collaborator of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden and had been on collection trips to South America. His monkey puzzle had actually been from nuts bought on the market at Puerto Montt in Chile rather than Norwegian trees. The botanical garden, located in a more exposed site than the nursery, also tried but failed, the young plants dying after a few years.
Bjørn Thon and monkey puzzle at Skavberg nursery on 4th June 2009
Monkey puzzle at Skavberg nursery on 4th June 2009 with several other plants from the southern hemisphere
Arve Elvebakk of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden proudly showing off his monkey puzzle which had overwintered. The seed was from a tree in western Norway
Arve Elvebakk of the Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanical Garden proudly showing off his monkey puzzle which had overwintered. The seed was from a tree in western Norway
Location of Skavberg
I also have a Brazilian monkey puzzle (Paraná pine) overwintered in my cold cellar without lights at about 3-4C and bring it up as a Xmas tree for a couple of weeks See http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=15467
In December 2004, I went to a remote sensing conference in Concepcion in Chile in my other life as an ocean wave climatologist!
I took some holiday to experience some of the native edibles. One of the main objectives was to experience the ancient old growth Monkey Puzzle forest (Araucaria araucana) and I hoped also to see nuts (piñones) for sale on Mapuche (the indigenous people) markets. It was probably the wrong time of the year (spring) and I didn’t see any nuts. However, after a failed attempt to get up into the main part of the Conguillío National Park due to late laying snow, I did a long hike into the Huerquehue National Park where I walked amongst the old growth monkey puzzle trees that are sometimes known as Umbrella or Toilet Brush trees as old trees (they can reach 1,000 years old!) only have a few branches at the top. Nowadays, it is an endangered species and logging is no longer allowed. It is also the national tree of Chile. A significant part of the diet of the native Pehuenche people (one of the Mapuche peoples) were the nutritious nuts and their name means simply people of the monkey puzzle seeds (Pewen).
Huerquehue National Park
Old growth trees on a distant ridge
The largest tree I saw, covered with lichens of various species
Lichens on Araucaria araucana
Anemone multifida? was growing in association with the largest monkey puzzle.
Osmorhiza chilensis is an umbellifer with a good aniseed taste (also found in North America) and growing well in forest shade
Gunnera chilensis/tinctoria (one of the 80 in my book) seen here clinging to rocks next to a high waterfall
I did see one group of Araucaria in the Conguillio national park, here on islands spared by the lava flows!
Andrew McMillion kindly picked me up early on Friday morning from the night train at Oslo airport and we drove together to the location of the KVANN / Norwegian Seed Savers annual meeting in Leikanger on the Sognefjord. As we were to arrive earlier than the other board members, I suggested going to Balestrand, about an hour further on as I’d heard that Norway’s largest Monkey Puzzle tree (apeskrekk) could be seen there! Andrew didn’t hesitate as he wanted also to go to Balestrand as he actually had family roots just a kilometer away from the tree!! There was much more than that though! It was an amazing day, first the wonderful trip over the mountains in perfect weather…to see what else we experienced, see the album!!
On the way over Hemsedalsfjellet to Sogn
On the way over Hemsedalsfjellet to Sogn
On the way over Hemsedalsfjellet to Sogn
On the way over Hemsedalsfjellet to Sogn
On the way over Hemsedalsfjellet to Sogn
Rock man
Just before this point, Andrew tells me that the last time he passed thjis place there were birdwatchers looking up at an eagle…I looked out of the window and there WAS an eagle high above us ;)
Ferry crossing from one tunnel to the next
Ferry across to Balestrand….Andrew coming home ;)
Approaching Balestrand
Above Balestrand
Kviknes Hotel was the largest wooden building in Norway when it was built…in Swiss style. Balestrand was a popular destination for Brits in the late 19th century and English climbing pioneer Margaret Sophia Green married one of the Kvikne family who owned the hotel and an English church was built in her memory after her death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Olaf%27s_Church,_Balestrand)
To our surprise there was a little botanical garden in the grounds around the hotel!
Frame dedicated to an artist colony from Balestrand
We had a taste of the young shoots of these giant stonecrops (bergknapp), Hylotelephium spectabile
Andrew inspecting a lovage plant emerging next to a grape..
Cornus kousa
The Golden House is an art gallery with an observation dome and meditation spot on the roof
Looking towards Andrew’s ancestral farm
Andrew with his ancestral farm in the background
Looking towards Andrew’s ancestral farm
Looking towards Andrew’s ancestral farm
Driving up to Andrew’s ancestral farm was a carpet of emerging ramsons (ramsløk)…he took a couple of plants for his own farm in Nes!
View from the ancestral farm!
View from the ancestral farm with a carpet of crocus
Above the farm
Day lilies (dagliljer) on the farm
A new roof on the old farm house!
Andrew taking cuttings from one of the oldest fruit trees
Lunde Arboretum was established in 1973 with the help of Professor Oddvin Reisæter from Oslo University due to the threat of developing the area for housing! However, some of the trees go back to the time of the first rector Harald Ulrik Sverdrup and his son HUS jr. who began to plant foreign trees in 1849 and fruit. By the end of the 19th century there was a collection of 46 pears here! The collections here were described by Professor Schubeler in the 1880s. Schubeler is well known for getting the help of local priests to test out plants throughout Norway. Both Reisæter and Schubeler figure in the Hablitzia tamnoides story in Norway!
Norway’s champion monkey puzzle came from England in 1873! It was long alone but several more trees were planted in 1984!
Wonderful Thanksgiving dip from last night’s festivities here in Hurdal…modelled on a Pinus cembra (Swiss pine / cembrafuru) in the Prestegårdshagen (rectory garden)
Documentation of yet another amazing day during last week’s Perennialen III in Hardanger!! Pictures taken on a fantastic 6-7 hour round trip from Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Aasdal Wiken’s house to their shieling (støl or seter in Norwegian). We took our time botanising on the way up, passing through different types of forest on the way up, from alder (or), ash (ask), planted spruce (gran), lime (lind), elm (alm), hazel (hassel), aspen (osp) and birch (bjørk) at the highest levels. Lower down, old apple trees witnessed that these steep slopes had at one time been worked for fruit production, no easy matter….
Eirik and Hege are planning to rejuvenate and replant some of this area and have planted a multispecies forest garden above and below the house, probably one of the most dramatic forest gardens in the world (more later).
A picture of Alvastien Telste taken last year showing the house at the bottom centre and the walk to the ridge at the top and beyond!
Starting our walk up the mountain, I took this picture of a farm on the other side of the fjord and, next picture, a shieling (seter / støl) is visible on the ridge at the top!
Shieling (seter / støl)
The house at Alvastien Telste
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Eirik and Hege’s tree house (I stayed there on my first visit – Perennialen I)
Under the spruce, a ground cover of young ash seedlings…the future of which is uncertain as Ash dieback has arrived here…
Impaties noli-tangere (Touch me not balsam / springfrø) was common on damper soils
Ostrich fern (strutseving) with enchanters nightshade (trollurt)
Cirsium arvense on a small open field halfway up the hill
Campanula
Late flowering Silene dioica (red campion /rød jonsokblom)
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
Alder tongue gall (Taphrina alni)
Mycelis muralis
Galium odoratum (woodruff / myske)
Rock to which an old cable lift was attached
Fox dung with beetle cases?
Old apple tree half way up
We saw one small population of hedge garlic (løkurt)
Wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Clambering wood vetch (skogsvikke)
Hazel (hassel)
More ostrich fern (strutseving)
There were many amazing trees, many of which were pollarded (for animal feed in the past)
Old barn
Pyrola spp.
Woodruff (myske)
The Troll Elm!
Eirik showed us an old cross on the rock marking the edge of his property
This ostrich fern had over 30 fertile fronds in the centre!!
I was surpised to find an area of Geranium lucidum
Woodruff (myske)
Steep slopes
Galium spp.
…the rain came down near the top
Fantastic views of the fjord on the way up!
Frosted bracken?
Rut pool used by red deer stags!
There weren’t many edible fungi apart from one good patch of chantarelles in the birch zone
Picking chantarelles
…and, finally, after 4 hours we reached the hut!
Foxglove (revebjelle) within the protection of this old wall
…and Rumex acetosa (sorrel)
We found a few cloudberries (molte)
Nuthatch (spettmeis)
Cardamine bulbifera (coralroot / tannrot)
Geranium lucidum
Trail cairn
Ostrich fern (strutseving)
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Great excitement yesterday morning (11th July 2017) to hear the familiar call of nutcrackers in the garden of the rectory where I’m staying here in Hurdal! Excited to see cones falling from the tree (cut off by a nutcracker), and lots of empty cones on the ground! More information with the pictures!
I’m the “Preacher” in residence this week staying in the rectory (presteboligen) which is now run by the ecovillage ;)
I was sitting working with the window open and I heard the familiar call of a nutcracker….
In the garden, I found several good looking pine trees!
5 needles suggests probably Pinus cembra, Swiss Pine, Arolla Pine or Austrian Stone Pine (Cembrafuru) (I saw this species recently on my trip to Austria) or the closely related Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica, previously P. cembra spp. sibirica) (Korean pine, P. koraiensis, is another possibility)
P. cembra and sibirica pine nuts are important food for Siberian Nutcrackers, mainly an invasive species to Norway (when there’s a failure of the nut supply in Siberia). However, many Pinus cembra trees have been planted in Norway in the last 30-50 years as ornamental trees and many of them are now producing nuts….in Trondheim, near where I live, some nutcrackers stayed after the last invasion and are now a local breeding bird thanks to the presence of their main food supply! The birds are now helping in the spread of this species as they cache the seeds for the winter in the forest as well as locally (there are now thousands of young trees growing invading woodland on Lade in the city)! Nutcrackers have also sowed seed in my own garden (where they also feed on hazel nuts)…
Under the trees was littered with the nut shells and empty cones
P. cembra and P. sibirica are also species with nuts large enough to be useful as edible pine nuts for humans along with Pinus pinea – Mediterranean Stone pine Pinus koraiensis – Korean pine Pinus gerardiana – Chilgoza pine Pinus pumila – Siberian dwarf pine Pinus armandii – Chinese white pine Pinus bungeana – lacebarus cembra – Swiss pinek pine
I opened and cracked a few pine nut shells
We took these along as an exclusive offering for dinner that we had been invited to :) They weren’t fully ripe… would probably have been best to store the cones first…
Pine nuts and cones on a bed of Plantago major!
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
I didn’t try again.
See 
