The 4th Perennialen was the shortest yet, a short visit to Eirik and Hege’s wonderful place and LAND centre at Alvastien in Hardanger after the Nordic Permaculture Festival in Jondal! This year’s participants were Eirik and Hege, Meg, Karoline from Myrrhis in Denmark, Julia Sol and LAND coordinator Helene Bøhler!
Next year will be the 5th Perennialen and we will be inviting you to a road trip around great permaculture sites of Hordaland and Hardanger in May, so watch this space!
English: It has been announced that this year’s big permaculture event in the Nordic countries, the Nordic Permaculture Festival will be arranged in and around the fantastic village of Jondal at the Hardanger Academy for Peace, Development and Environment (see http://www.hardangerakademiet.no). Jondal is situated on the Hardanger Fjord just a half hour’s drive from the Folgefonna Glacier!
Norsk: Det er annonsert at årets store begivenhet innenfor Permakultur i Norden, den Nordiske Permakultur Festivalen blir arrangert i og omkring fantastiske Jondal ved Hardangerakademiet (Nordisk senter for fred, utvikling og miljø) http://www.hardangerakademiet.no Jondal ligger ved Hardangerfjorden bare en kort halvtimers kjøretur fra isbreen Folgefonna!
On the second day of Perennialen III, in early August 2017, we were joined by Rebecca Smith of Norway’s second LAND centre on Byrknesøy on the coast north of Bergen! Since I last met Rebecca here during Perennialen I, Eirik Lillebøe Wiken’s food forest which basically surrounds the house, both above and below all the way down to the fjord on steep ground, has grown well and is becoming more established. The diversity has also increased. These pictures are from our food forest tour together including a stop on the shoreline where we could only imagine the wild food forest also in the fjord, this is truly a food forest with many layers :)
It’s been announced that this year’s Nordic Permaculture Festival will be arranged between 12th and 15th July 2018 in Jondal at the Hardanger Academy for Peace, Development and Environment, which is located in western Norway next to the Hardanger Fjord in fantastic surroundings and not far from the famous Folgefonna glacier! About time then that I blogged about my visit there as part of the annual Perennialen (no. 3), arranged by Eirik Lillebøe Wiken of the Alvastien Permaculture LAND Centre on the other side of the fjord. On the first day of Perennialen III, Eirik took me on aday trip, first to the famous garden at Baroniet Rosendal and then on to Jondal. A blog about the visit to Rosendal will follow tomorrow!
See the photo album below:
On the way up the mountain at Alvastien Telste I found a particularly fertile ostrich fern with 30 fertile fronds! This is the edible wild plant equivalent of a moose with antlers with many points ;)
These much shorter fronds which carry the spores are one of the most important distinguishing features of ostrich fern (the taller fronds don’t have spores).
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).
Ostrich Fern (strutseving)
Ants on pine tree
Aspen (osp) and the fjord
Young blackcap (munk)
Eirik Lillebøe Wiken and Hege Iren Aasdal Wiken‘s Udo (Aralia cordata) has grown a lot since last year and has one of the best views over Fyksefjorden in the Forest Garden! :)
1. Eirik and his Udo now towers over his head..
2. Decaisnea (Dead man’s finger / likfinger) on the left produces fruit with Udo (Aralia cordata)
3. View down over Eirik and Hege’s house close to the Fyksefjord
Alvastien Telste is Norway’s first LAND project (LAND officially started up in Norway yesterday) located on a side arm of the Hardangerfjord in beautiful surroundings…this was my next stop on my short tour of Western Norway. This little film (shot unknown to Eirik Lillebøe Wiken who was driving and narrating) shows the dramatic approach to this place, run by Eirik and Hege Iren Svendsen!
The road is very exposed to rock slides…see the size of the boulders that have tumbled down the hill and the repairs to the road and notice at 1:00 the sign warning of falling rocks 
In the last part, we enter the forest garden area before seeing the house!