Stephen Barstow
Stephen Barstow has cultivated a diversity of vegetables in Trøndelag in a 40-year-old forest garden in Malvik municipality by Trondheimsfjorden, which is also known for its great biodiversity. The garden is internationally known today as "The Edible Garden" and is part of the international Permaculture LAND network and KVANN's Schübeler's gardens. He was previously the leader of KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) from its founding in 2006 (The Plant Club for Vegetables) until 2018, and today he is still on KVANN's plant science committee.
Over the years, he has grown over 8,000 edible plants in his garden. Inspired by the Mediterranean Diet and documentation of numerous traditional diversity dishes from there, he created a salad with a total of 537 different plants in 2004 and earned the nickname The Extreme Salad Man. He is internationally known for his work with perennial vegetables and is the author of the book "Around the World in 80 Plants" (2014) about his 80 favourites. He has travelled the world to hold many courses, lectures, and edible garden tours in botanical gardens. After retiring from his job as an ocean wave researcher in 2017, he has become a guest researcher at NTNU Ringve Botanical Garden, where he has created the Onion Garden Chicago with over 400 different Allium plants. He has also created the World Garden at Væres Venner's community garden in Trondheim, where over 160 perennial food plants from around the world are planted and arranged geographically (based on his book). In addition, nearly 300 different fruit, berry, and nut trees have been planted. He is also responsible for KVANN's vegetable reserve.
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