Due to this year's special effects, there's been some more gardening than usual... and there's also been the first proper woad harvest, both seeds from the plants that are now two years old, and leaves from the new plants.

The seeds are beautiful too - I find their colours spectacular:



They are fully dry now, almost falling off the plants by themselves, and some of them are going to find their way into the shop in the next days.

The leaf harvest wasn't huge, but enough for two woad balls, and there's a portion for a third ball currently sitting in a jar, as I want to try fermenting it for a bit before forming the ball.

[caption id="attachment_5428" align="alignnone" width="488"] My very first woad balls! My hands were bright green after making these... and there was even a hint of blueishness to the green after a while.


Now the whole thing has to dry out completely, and then it can be crushed and either couched (a kind of fermentation process) or used straight away for dyeing.

[caption id="attachment_5429" align="alignnone" width="382"] More woad crushed up, and ready to ferment for a bit. (Plus bonus fresh spindle whorls in the background...)


I'm having a lot of fun finally playing around with this!

Today was busy with shopkeeping things - printing, sorting, re-stocking, and sorting stuff. Plus bringing parcels to the post office, which is one of the tasks I feel are very pleasant; not only is there a feeling of accomplishment when things are sent off, it also means a nice little walk to the post office and back, sometimes accompanied by a short hop into the shop across the road to stock up on things. Which might include something nice and sweet for the afternoon coffee.

Speaking of coffee, my little coffee plants are coming along nicely:



Some of the batch have gone to a new home (with my mum, and aunt, or friends) and I'll see how the rest does. At least this time I know that they like light, but no direct full sun, and that they need acidic soil (the lack of which probably killed them last time around).

The chili plants are also coming along, though slowly. I already had most of them moved to outside, so they'd have direct sun and fresh air and rain and overall outsideness... but they are back in the wintergarden now, after some losses.

You see, at night... the snails came. They feasted on the chilis, and also on the basil, which is the sorry blurry thing you can see in the foreground here:



Another reason for moving the plants back inside: One day, we came home from a walk and saw a hare hopping through the garden, and I'm pretty sure that he or she's to blame for two chili plants that were bitten off right above the soil! They probably won't come back, as they were still quite young... but I'm determined not to feed the hare with more of my capsicum plants, so inside they'll stay.

 

It's getting really nice, warm, and summery around here! The bees and bumblebees are visiting flowers in bloom, the raspberries are ripening, and the first tomatoes are turning red. It's a delightful time of year... so you're getting some pictures from the current state of things.

First of them all, the flowering hibiscus plant:



Outside, there's lavender and marguerites and carnations:

There's also that green space that cannot be called "lawn" anymore, on account of its lack of grass.



It's mostly a kind of wild creeping thyme these days, interspersed with taller flowers, the occasional stubborn tuft of grass, some moss, and a bare patch here or there. Because of the mass of thyme last year, together with the extreme crunchiness of most plants on the "lawn", we tried out what would happen if there was no mowing of the plants. The result was more thyme (and of course more time, too), and an astonishing plus of insects in the green space. Lots and lots of grasshoppers and cicadas, way more than before. Plus more flowering thyme, and other flowers as well.

Which means we decided to do just the same this year again, with similar results: A lush, beautiful covering of the ground with green thyme (much more dry-resistant than grass, by the way), lots of flowers feeding lots of insects which are supporting more birds in their turn. Last year there was one pass with the lawn-mower in the autumn, to clean things up a little bit, and probably we'll do the same this year. Not mowing also means that there is more space for more pretty wild flowers... so yay for a tiny bit of wilderness in the middle of civilisation!

There's new shiny things here! Well, actually they are not shiny at all...

Almost exactly four weeks ago, I ate a passionfruit and then placed the seeds into a little dish with soil. I did manage to keep it moist for the four weeks, and guess what has now started to germinate?



Right! Now I'm very curious to see if they will grow, and survive, and maybe even flower at some point.

Another thing that is now finally sprouting, after weeks of hanging out in the soil, is this avocado seed:



And finally, also new, also not shiny, but still delighting me a lot - new spindle whorls have arrived, and I've taken some photos already, to update those in the online shop.



There's now a wider range of weights available, from around 9 g (and very few even lighter ones) to up to 50 g. New stone whorls are also here, and taking pictures of them is on my list for tomorrow...

 

I've encountered a few bonus technical problems while editing, so you're getting this picture of our current guest in the wintergarden:



She seems to like it there... apparently both the nasturtium leaves and the mexican mini-cucumbers are to her taste. At least that's what we assume from the holes in them!

In general, I'm not too fond of raisins. There are people who put them into apple cake, and into cheese cake, and I find that... um... unattractive. Very unattractive. Same is true for raisins in muesli, and in chocolate (there's nut-and-raisin chocolate available in Germany, and I only eat that very rarely as a reminder of childhood days). I'm also not too fond of them in trail mix.

There's a few places, though, where I find them acceptable - or even necessary. One prime example?

Scones.



I love scones. Preferably with clotted cream (which is hard to get in Germany). So here's my recipe for scones, just in case you are feeling like going on a bit of a pandemic baking spree, like so many others:

75 g raisins or currants (I prefer currants)
115 g buttermilk

75 g butter
45-50 g sugar
1 large egg
pinch of salt
15 g baking powder (amount generally recommended for 500 g of flour)
340 g flour (typically wheat, I use spelt)
optional: quarter teaspoon of baking soda (or less)

Soak raisins or currants in buttermilk for at least one hour.

Mix cold butter, flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder to prepare for making a shortcrust-type dough. Form into a ring on your work surface, add buttermilk, currants, and egg to the inside of the ring; knead until it forms a smooth dough.
Roll out your dough straight away (no rest needed), to about 2.5 cm of thickness on a floured surface, then use a glass or a suitably sized round cookie cutter to cut circles. Put on baking sheet and wash with leftover buttermilk or an egg-buttermilk-mix or just egg. (I tip the buttermilk and currants into the floury ring, then whisk the egg in the now-vacated bowl, then tip it into the ring as well. The bits of egg and buttermilk left in that bowl are enough  or almost enough to glaze the scones; they definitely are if another small bit of buttermilk is added.)

Bake at 189-190°C in a non-fan oven, for about 15 minutes.

They still taste nice the day after baking, and even the day after that. They never survived for longer in our household...

This is what happens if you don't realise that this kind of flower (Bleiwurz) is not too resistant against frost:



I can't remember seeing them freeze spectacularly like this in autumn, so possibly it was just the time of year. They'll recover, though, and they still have some time to do so until they are scheduled to bloom.

I did take care to cover the fig for the last few nights, to protect them against the Ice Saints. Which is very important, because:



Figs!

There's also the first tomatoes hanging around in the winter garden. The plant is from last year, which explains why it's already working on fruit:



I managed to get another tomato plant through the winter as well, but since it didn't really get going, I finally threw it out. This one, though... definitely a keeper, if it will keep.



I have also finally done what I've been thinking about for years now: Try and raise some passionflower plants. They have beautiful flowers, and I find the fruit quite tasty. Our supermarket happened to have some purple passionfruit... so now I'm waiting for the seeds to germinate. Which can take a few weeks, according to the internet. We'll see!