Another week has flown by, and I'm half happy that it's Friday (yay weekend!) and half unhappy (but... but... I wanted to get more done this week!). It's nice and sunny outside at the moment, so the happy half is much louder right now as well.

Speaking of nice and sunny, there's something hanging in the sun here, and it is seeing some use:



These are "wild bee hotels" - ceramic blocks with smooth round holes in them, deep enough for wild bees to make their nests in there. They hang in front of our winter garden, where they get plenty of sun (warmth is important for the brood), and we're happy to see that they are all getting some attention from the wild bees. Their season has only started a bit ago, so we're hoping to see much more action around here during the summer.

Our placing the hotels is not completely altruistic, by the way. These small solitary bees are excellent pollinators, and we have a few fruit trees in the garden that I definitely want to see well-visited when they are in bloom. Which is around... now, for most of them. So go little bees!

It's well and truly spring now hereabouts - which is good for the mood, and thus very, very good at the moment, with all the stupidity running rampant in this country. The planned lockdown-esque thing over Easter? It's been cancelled again, because of reasons. So we'll be going on just like right now... which, according to my personal prediction, will mean we'll have a 7-day incidence of about 200 by next Tuesday. And then it will rise some more. And, with the incredible ingenuity and flexibility of our politicians, combined with their courage to do the things that are necessary even if they are painful and the lobbyists protest, and their disregard for bureaucracy when things need to move quickly, nothing will happen for at least three more weeks.

My unexpected laugh of the day from yesterday, by the way, was hearing that the Irish news say Germany wants to have all adults vaccinated by July. To which the most patient husband instantly commented that yes... they may want that.

Me, on the other hand, I think it's entirely possible that this happens - as they did say July, but not which year. July 2023? Totally possible.

Ah well. Nothing I can do to change all this. So - let me entertain you with the flowers currently blooming in the garden!

The first violets are coming out...



...while the crocuses are still going strong. And there was a white-butted visitor snacking on these this morning:



Also - mini-Iris blooms!

We've made good use of the beautiful weather in the last days and got the garden partly cleaned up for spring. The bushes and shrubs are all pruned, most of the leaves have been removed from the beds under the willow fence, and I've started clearing out unwanted things from under the raspberries. There will be need for fertiliser at quite a few places, and there's still a chunk of work left to do, but it begins to look a lot like Chrisma - no, spring, of course.

The neighbour's bees are also stopping by occasionally, and he's told us that all his hives have survived the winter. We've also seen at least one bumblebee queen - the white-arsed variety, probably Bombus Terrestris.

There has also been some spring cleaning in the wintergarden... and there, unfortunately, losses were quite considerable. The lemon tree and the two physalis plants made it fine. Of the three Ecuador Purple chili plants, one survived, one is dead, and on the third jury's still out, but it's not looking good.

[caption id="attachment_5878" align="alignnone" width="159"] The Ecuador Purple sprouting again!


I also suspect that the tomatoes are a complete and resounding nope... which is a pity, because they are so much earlier when you get them to survive the winter. Ah well.

The smaller of my dwarf pepper plants also survived, without even shedding its leaves:



The other, large one, is probably dead too. As are all my coffee plants. There's some avocado trees still growing happily - but of the Marconi Red pepper plants, none seem to have made it. I'm not sure if one or two of the noname spice rack chilis have survived, but most of these are crunchy as well.

On the positive side, all three of the Bishop's Hat pepper plants did survive, and are working hard on new leaves right now:



We got those seeds because the fruits look quite weirdly funny.



These are recently harvested, by the way, so they are from last year. And they are tasty as well!

So this year will see a lot of new, young tomato plants. And then, who knows, some of them might actually make it into the next year...

The cold spell here seems to be over, at least for now - we've had rain today, washing away all the snow. Now the snowdrops are visible again:



as are the first crocus blossoms. Not open yet, but soon.



It's really nice to have these first heralds of spring coming out! It also reminds me that it's about time to start the tomato and chili and pepper seedlings...

There were heavy snowfalls in Germany yesterday, and there was a little more snow also today, and it's rather cold outside at the moment with the prediction of even lower temperatures during the next few days.

The snow that came down turned everything here into a winter wonderland - it looks really, really pretty!



There's little heaps or cockscombs of snow on every twig and branch. Of course, there's also snow on every willow withy that has not been cut yet:



and it will need to get warmer again before we can continue harvesting; it should be above 0°C for the cutting. For now, though, we enjoy the funny contrast between the cut and the uncut bits, both looking very nice:



Thank goodness we're living in an area that is getting snow regularly and so the logistics are in place to cope, as in there's vehicles to clear the streets. People also tend to know how to drive a car in wintery conditions. We cycled to our milk dispenser yesterday, to get milk, eggs, and a few (blue) potatoes, and there were a few spots on the way where we were really glad about our studded tyres. With those and appropriate clothes, winter cycling really is fun, even if it takes a bit longer and is rather more strenuous in snow and on ice than on clear roads.

Traffic-wise, things are not looking so good in some other parts of Germany, where the snowfall has led to delays or cancellation of public transport, and to some spectacularly bad traffic jam, with people trapped in their cars for hours.

The reason for the cold spell, by the way, is air from the polar zones coming down south... which is linked to global warming. Changes in overall temperature lead to changes in the polar vortices, which are air currents around the pole, which means the cold air isn't contained there anymore, and thus comes to visit... so having winters with hard cold spells is just the opposite of what one would suspect at first glance.

Well. At least the snow we're getting out of this right now is pretty.

 

It's the time of year again - our willow fence has to be pruned. Willow harvest!

I find it absolutely amazing each year to see how much biomass this fence pushes out; and each year there's more of the really thick ones. I'd say withies, but they are more like little trees themselves!

We got started with the cutting yesterday, and as usual, it will take us a while and a few sessions to get through the whole fence. There is definitely a difference visible already, though:



You can see where we got started on the left side. We're always cutting the fence in several (many!) sessions, as there are still some places where the basic structure is not established completely, and it takes some concentration to not cut the wrong bits off. Especially the lower arches are prone to losses, and it's very easy to cut off all possible replacement shoots before realising that one would have been needed to close the gap... It's also still rather nippy in February, and cold hands do not work so well.

When we planted the fence, we made sure to choose a willow variant that is suitable for basketry, but some of them are also used for willowing wool (as in beating it to fluffiness) - and some will become distaffs. Such as these nice, straight, rather sturdy ones:



They are really long - and rather thick at the bottom end, as you can see here with my trusty measurement fingers:



My index and middle finger side by side are exactly 3 cm wide. That has come in handy so many times!

On that note: If you are ever in the need of figuring out how long or wide something is - and who isn't - it is totally worth it to play around with a ruler and figure out how wide your fingers in various combinations are. I get 3, 5, and approximately 1 cm with my fingers, plus an approximately 20 cm with my hand fully spanned out, and there's a lot of measurement questions that can be covered with these units.

I've posted before about the slightly weird chili plants that I have this year. They are still alive, and faring fairly well, even though it has gotten quite cold now. We don't heat the winter garden, so it's below 10° C in there now, and can drop down to about 3-4 ° C. That is approximately the lowest temperature that tomato plants will endure, and chilis don't like it much colder either, so there is not much growing or blooming going on there right now. With one exception - my physalis plant is flowering; it starts in autumn or early winter, and goes on flowering basically all through winter here.



With the chilis, there is slow but steady ripening of the fruits. Which means interesting colour changes in the interesting chilis:



They will eventually turn all red, but at the moment, I am totally enjoying this multi-coloured effect.

There's still some activity other than slow ripening, by the way - one stalwart fly is living in the winter garden and visits the flowers when it's sunny and thus a bit warmer. And something else is apparently also active, as evidenced by this:



Chili plant leaves, it seems, are tasty for someone!