A horticulturist (BSc), herbalist, homestead gardener. Deeply interested in plants, permaculture and all aspects of sustainable living, especially self-sufficient food production and cold climate agroforestry.
For more than last ten years I've been involved in professional horticulture, working at arboretums, nurseries and botanical gardens. Mostly my work has been focused on growing and testing new edible & ornamental plants in Finland.

I am still involved in planning seed collection expeditions for the purpose of widening the variety of ornamental plants grown in Finland. In 2016 we organised a trip to Arboretums in Poland. In 2017 we are did a seed collecting expedition to the Southern Appalachian Mountains in the U.S. This was done together with Mustila Arboretum (National Arboretum of Finland) and two plant nurseries in southern Finland.

I did my PDC in the UK with Aranya & Klaudia van Gool in November 2010. Since then I've decided to devote all my time to learning more about permaculture.

I was privileged to take part in organising the first international PDC course (with Aranya & Mari Korhonen) in Finland in August 2011. In 2017 we ran a full year PDC in the same location together with other Permaculture teachers around Turku. In 2019 we started to offer the first Agroforestry & Edible Forest Gardening course in Finland. The course will be taught every autumn for the next five years and will take part in the Agricultural college of Tuorla (LIVIA) near Turku.

I did some woofing at some permaculture projects in Cornwall and Devon, UK in April 2011.
In September of the same year I started my studies of Permaculture / Practical Sustainability at Kinsale College of Further Education in The Republic of Ireland, which was at that moment, the only education of its kind in Europe. I ended my studies after the first term in May 2012.

Summer & Autumn 2012: I was hired as the head gardener for an organic CSA in the archipelago of Turku, SW Finland. After that I was hired to teach gardening to young people in an agricultural college near Turku.
My work since then has been at the Botanical Garden of the University of Turku and few nurseries near Turku.

I'm a manager in Metomaa Agroforestry Trial, based in a large polytunnel/greenhouse in Rauma. The work that started in 2007 is aimed to gain more knowledge on the variety of edible plant species that can be grown in Southern Finland.

We are running Vesterbacka Orchard together with my girlfriend. Vesterbacka Orchard is an organic fruit orchard, concentrating on apple production for local sales and for apple jam, apple juice and cider production. We are also growing smaller amounts of other fruits, berries, vegetables and building a small Forest Garden. All the production is organic.