The garden is in proper spring mood now - the peach blossom is through, as is the bloom of the sour cherry. There are the first strawberry blossoms now:

and, much to the delight of bees and bumble-bees, the borage is also in flower already:

Theoretically, these are edible leaves, and they are said to be delicious in combination with cucumbers - but somehow I've never really warmed to them. They are a bit too hairy for my palate. I still enjoy having the plant in the garden, though, as they are blooming nicely and for most of the warm period; the flowers make a nice edible decoration on salads, and the insects love them, too. Plus it comes back year after year, sowing its own seeds, and if it is somewhere that I don't want it, removal is rather easy. So altogether, it actually is one of my favourite plants!

I'm back from spending a few days with family, and of course things to do have stacked up in the time - so here you have a tulip from our garden while I am trying to catch up!

Our neighbour has acquired a hive of bees. It's sunny and quite dry. I've "activated" (as in "soaked") a block of coconut fibres in a plastic bucket a few days ago, to mix with soil for potting plants.

These three things, together, have resulted in this:

These are bees, probably mostly from the neighbour's hive, having a drink. Actually not only having a drink, but filling up with water to carry back to the hive, to liquify food, be able to digest pollen, and to cool down the hive if necessary.

Which means I've been watering the bee-bar every morning now - and I have the pleasure of lots and lots of bees keeping me company when I sit right outside the wintergarden, where the bucket stands, having a break!

Spring has really sprung now, and there are flowers, flowers galore in the garden. Here's picture proof, first of the first tulips:

The peach tree is also flowering nicely:

... and the hyacinths are doing a good job of adding some blue to the flower beds. Which I much appreciate, with blue still being my favourite colour!

At least early spring is - as these guys in the garden stand testimony:



The crocus, as usual, is the first to go bloom. The snowdrops sit in a more shady part of the garden and will need a few more days, but they are obviously also getting ready:



Early spring also means it's willow-pruning time, and our fence goes from its wild winter stage, which looks like this:



to being all bare of withies, ready to make new ones when spring truly comes:

Late summer is a season for delights - our peaches are ripe now, the first late-summer and autumn apples are also ripening, and of course there are the Zwetschgen, this kind of plum that lends itself to baking and cooking like nothing else does. Few things are better than Zwetschgen on a cake with Streusel... or even without.
There's another delight of the season, however, and that is elderberries. As fond as I am of elderberry flowers (excellent fritters, lovely syrup, wonderful jelly - though I only make fritters, because I am lazy and our tree doesn't yield so much, flower-wise, without getting a jetpack or some way to turn off gravity), it is totally worth it to not harvest all the flowers, because then... there's elderberries later on in the year.



While one should not eat them raw (they are slightly poisonous when uncooked), they will add colour and wonderful flavour to cooked dishes. So when we happened upon some windfall apples, I took this as a sign to get out the ladder and harvest some elderberries... and a while later, we had dinner.

Curd cheese casserole with elderberries and apple, seasoned with a little cinnamon. A seasonal delight indeed!

I'm on my way back home from the fair, and while I am on the road, you are getting peaches. Or at least pictures of peaches, hanging on our tree:



Though they look temptingly yellow and red, they are still hard as stones, and will need some more weeks to ripen. Last year's fruits were edible sometime in September, so I'm waiting. And hoping there will not be more people along like the guy who recently stole one of the unripe ones when leaving the premises, triggering a nice little fit of temper!