10 May 2020...
The glorious spring rains continued until last week.
Fantastic thunderstorm in the middle of one night, lighting up the lands with the fire of life.
Did you know, that a lightning storm, as it cracks through the atmosphere, also cracks open the triple-bond of the nitrogen, N2, molecules, which make up 78% of the air, allowing it to combine with oxygen, then dissolving into the rain droplets, carrying it into the earth to be available to plants.
Lots of updates from the last blog to enthrall all the ever-growing numbers of Várzea Blog enthusiasts...
Here is the garden of Eduardo and Xander this week....(check out the pictures from the same place in the last blog)
.... and that of Holger and Farnaz....
.... not to forget the main garden. Here is Aga in the jungle of the perennial section...
Meanwhile, our water tank is fully installed, sunken in its hole and in-filled around, and now full of 74000 litres of river-water.... with the surroundings about to turn green with summer Sorghum - see it in the next blog! Here is Pavel with the new path he and Edu made...
Rob is continuing with his structures for the climbing vines and kiwis (mostly vines), while Xander has completed the giant spring hillside cut, and now he and myself are giving the final cut to the floodplain (várzea) which is the developing food-forest... But not today. Today I am sitting in my yurt with the doors open and the rain steadily pattering on the roof, grasses, bushes, trees outside all deliciously drippy. Bloody marvellous!
And we've fruit, oh yes, a lot of. The first fruit of the year are the nesperas, as they are known here, but, more commonly, as loquats (Eriobotria japonica), delicious orange fruits similar in size to plums but a different family. Temperate zone people most likely aren't familiar with them as they can't ripen north of the mediterranean zone (in the USA, I wouldn't know). They are native to China and the far east. Anyway, we have a great many of these trees, and we've been drying, jam-making, crumble-making. Next time round, wine and spirit. Got the still, but still need to get better wine-equipment. The current batch of drying....
... with Rob, making a break from his structure-constructions.
17 May, sunday....
A week on, the sun has hit, and looks like summer in initiated. Today I got sunburned on the beach. Maybe that's our rain for 4 months - next week we are predicted a heat wave.
The mission for this week: fruit drying and processing. Still bucketloads of nesperas, and next, soon, peaches and apricots...
Like having a beer outside the local petrol station among locals, sharing this modern-day "speak-easy" with all the cafés closed. That kind of camaraderie everywhere, as here and among our valley neighbours.
There are plenty of things to blether and harp on about, but it's a beautiful time of the year, made so by the spring rain, so here are 1 or 2 pictures I took here today...
A project 13 years in the process from an abandoned landscape, still in it's formative phase.
And here is a picture of the tireless blog-writer, relaxing after a hard session...
... adios amigos.
And keep those disgusting masks off - they are really bad for your health!
1 comment:
Amazing what a month can do in the garden. It looks so good and peaceful. I am glad you had a lot of rain. You are blessed with so much beauty around you. Take care and enjoy life. Berthy
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