Pictures from a great day last Sunday in the company of a great group of permaculture interested folks from Oikos Nord Trøndelag (Oikos = Organic Norway)
We started in my garden in Malvik at 10:30, then travelled north to Johannes Moen’s place just south of Steinkjer, stopping on the way to collect some fertility and for a swim in Leksdalsvatnet! I got home by train at 11:30 pm!
The day started with a tour around my garden
We stopped in Stiklestad on a farm which had been run organically since about 1990 to pick up horse muck for the perennial garden we were to create in the evening!
Not a plant I see often in this area, Stachys palustris was growing on the farm…it has edible tubers..I also found it growing at Hurdal Ecovillage last week and will dig some next time I visit…
On the way north, we stopped off for a swim at the north end of Leksdalsvatnet, one of the best lakes for birds in our area, including little gull (dvergmåke) and great crested grebe (toppdykker/ https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toppdykker), which I spotted from the car!
The swimming area…
I found another rare plant in this area, Alisma plantago-aquatica (vassgro / greater water plantain), when I was out swimming :) I’ve never been convinced to try eating it. This is the entry in Cornucopia II: “The bulb-like bases are eaten after being dried to rid them of their acrid properties”. According to pfaf.org, “the seed is said to promote sterility. By contrast it is also said to promote conception ” ;)
The Alisma locality was on the other side of the water
…and another rare plant, Thalictrum flavum I think, right next to where we sat
…and another rare plant, Thalictrum flavum I think, right next to where we sat
The last stop was at Johannes Moen’s strange house just south of Steinkjer..built by his dad in concrete, it had been designed to have glass sides in which plants could be grown, but it was sadly never completed…Johannes and his brother are living here now and making improvements
Johannes Moen tells us about the house
The original family home
They have been insulating the walls
Scything demonstration on the area we were to convert to a new permaveggie garden!
Participants learning the age old technique of bastard digging which I taught them (I learned this technique back in the 80s from one of John Seymour’s books and dug my own garden by hand in this way! It is surprisingly quick, this area only taking two people about an hour or so…after which we could plant straight away…with this technique, the top spit of soil ends up two spits down an upside down!
Veggie soup and blueberry pie for dinner by a bonfire of birch and “høymole/Northern Dock (Rumex longifolius)” which was also being burned at Hurdal last week ;)
Planting up the bed with plants we’d brought with us from Malvik…
The plants include Hablitizia, Malva moschata, Caraway (Karve), various onions including Allium cernuum, A. scorodoprasum, A.fistulosum, A. schoenoprasum “Major”, Cryptotaenia canadensis, Viola canadensis, Ligularia sachalinensis (by mistake, I thought it was L. fischeri) etc.
Tour to the tower on top of the house!
Views over the surrounding agricultural land
…but forest surrounds one side of the property
I took the train back home from Sparbu
…and a beautiful journey it is along the side of Trondheimsfjord!
Salicornia (marsh samphire/salturt) grow on the mudflats in this picture
