Winter polytunnel chores

Alex and I have both been ill over the holidays, I suspect having picked up RSV -- runny nose, bad cough, lethargy, low-grade fever. We are not used to being sick. We couldn't muster the energy to do much, go anywhere, see anything. Yesterday and today, I finally started cleanup in the polytunnel slowly. I weeded the two empty beds, pruned the fruit trees, and watered. There was quite a lot of damage during the arctic cold snap. The tender shoots at the tops of plants suffered. My two Brugmansias melted as did all the remaining tomato plants. So I've been yanking and getting ready to replace. 

The good news is that the indoor grapevine, which I thought was fried to death in the summer, is already budding. I forgot to prune it today, but there's not much to do there. Next week, I start in the vineyard. 

Peaches on the left, lemon on the right

The avocado at centre stage

Orange, prolific but bitter

Snip and it's gone.

Brits shifting to new varieties

Chardonnay grapes
BerndtF, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are among the grapes being cultivated in England with notable success. Pinot gris (Pinot grigio) is another. Lesser-known varieties like Pinot Meunier are also making it to the table, taking the British still wine production out of the white and into the red realm. And short-season varieties like Madeline Angevine and Baccus may be worth trying.  This is very encouraging as it means we were on the right track. Here are a few new varieties highlighted by Decanter. And I definitely want to sample the Bolney Wine Estate Pinot gris.

And then there's also Sweden which is coming along fast as a wine-producing region. A fine place to make ice wine. They grow mainly Solaris and Rondo, which we know all about. And they make the point that their grapes get a long day of sunlight up there, as do we. Let's hope for a good season. 

Alex and I both had some respiratory illness over Christmas, most likely RSV by the symptoms, so we're ending the year with a bummer, but we'll be getting out into the vineyard as soon as it clears up. Time to start pruning.  

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and here's to hoping for a much-improved year in 2023. 

Our dormant vineyard last week

Views from the top of our hill. 

Arctic blast

With the cold weather, we've finally been able to drive and walk without sinking in the vineyard again. Alex has been installing cross wires, the last stage before we can train the remaining vines. But today it was so cold we couldn't work there. We are experiencing weather we have never seen before. Temperatures plunging well below 0C for more than a week, fog lifting from the ocean and freezing, drifting as ice fog before it settles as black ice on the roads and paths and vegetation. Driving conditions are treacherous. 

It is beastly cold but thankfully, there's little wind. And it's supposed to last all week. We haven't had really cold weather like this in years. Wednesday, it's supposed to drop to -8C (~17F). I hope the vines can take it. At least some of the pests may be destroyed.

But apparently, Ireland is no stranger to abysmally cold weather. There have been cold snaps recorded since early Christian times. 

Winter has arrived

Met Eireann has delivered a frosty National Outlook for the coming week. Today was brilliantly sunny, but the cold has begun to descend upon us. Tonight will be our first significant frost, and it will continue to get colder through the week. I even picked out the word #sniachta in the Irish language forecast today. The skies have been clear enough to see the moon and the ISS passing near it. Wednesday will be the Cold Moon. 

This is a jet not the ISS which appears as a moving star.

I cannot believe it's already well into December -- time seems to be accelerating. November turned out to be similar to the prior two years, with average rainfall and mild temperatures.

Alex had been installing the crosswires so we could finally train the vines properly on the trellises, but it got too wet to drive on the land or to even walk it. Here is the forecast for the coming week:

Overview: Very cold with widespread frost and icy stretches on roads. Plenty of dry weather is expected but there will be wintry showers at times, particularly in the north and northwest.

• Tuesday night: Very cold with widespread frost, as temperatures drop to between -3 and +2 degrees. It will be generally dry and clear and there will be a light northerly wind.
• Wednesday: Cold with temperatures only reaching 2 to 5 degrees, in a light north to northwest wind. It will be dry and sunny in most places, but there will be scattered showers in northern and western coastal areas. The showers will turn increasingly wintry later in the day, with snow likely on high ground.
• Wednesday night: Bitterly cold with temperatures falling below zero degrees countrywide and as low as -3 or -4 degrees in some places. There will be a widespread sharp to severe frost and ice on untreated surfaces. Showers will fall as sleet or snow in some areas.
• Thursday: Very cold with temperatures remaining in low single figures. A mix of sunny spells and well-scattered showers of sleet, snow and hail. 
• Thursday night: Another bitterly cold night with widespread sharp to severe frost and icy stretches. Minimum temperatures of -4 to -2 degrees in a light north to northwest wind. Most areas will be dry and clear but there will be wintry showers at times near the coast.
• Friday: Staying very cold with temperatures remaining in low single figures. Mostly dry with sunny spells, but wintry showers will persist near coasts, especially in the north.
• Further outlook: Little change expected for the weekend; staying very cold with some wintry showers and widespread frost by night.

 

Everyone is dormant.

A new protected designation in the Netherlands

A protected designation of origin (PDO) "Rivierenland" for wine, quality sparkling wine, semi-sparkling wine and wine from dried grapes was published in the Official Journal of the EU C 315 of August 19, 2022, the EC notification 2022/C 315/06.

Depending on the type of product, the minimum alcohol content is between 5 % and 12 % vol. Depending on the variety, the maximum yield per hectare is 40-60 hectoliters. The varieties are exclusively PIWI, of which there are 14 in total, ten of which come from Germany and 4 from Switzerland. The white PIWI varieties are Cabernet blanc, Johanniter, Merzling, Muscaris, Sauvignac, Solaris, Souvignier gris and Villaris. The blue PIWI varieties are Cabaret noir, Cabernet Cantor, Cabernet Cortis, Monarch, Pinotin and Regent.

Official Journal of the EU C 315 of August 19, 2022; Jiří Sedlo

Winter drama

Sun setting over Daria's Vineyard

Winter has arrived in the west with all the drama that later sunrises and earlier sunsets create. Today was a spectacular day, after the morning fog, crisp, dry for the most part, and still -- very still. The kind of still that recreates the landscape upside down in reflections on the water. I just love watching upside-down sheep romping along liquid green fields. 

In Ireland, winter arrives officially on the 1st of November by the Gaelic or Celtic calendar. Winter or Geimhreadh starts the day after Halloween (referred to in Ireland as Samhain). The Gaelic calendar also protends that February 1st is actually the start of spring.

Today's sunrise at about 8 AM

Starts                         Ends                              Meteorological Winter in Ireland    1st of December        31st of February Astronomical Winter in Ireland       21st of December      20th of March Traditional Gaelic Seasons              1st November          31st of January

The wispy clouds did their magic at both sunrise and sunset, turning hot pink in salutations to the sun. The occasional drip of showers created rainbows all day long without actually interfering with outdoor life. It made for solemn reflections about life for the planet's now 8 billion people, a landmark reached yesterday.

There is still a lot of activity in the garden. The bees were buzzing mid-day as the air warmed up. One rose bloomed in the vineyard in anticipation. Lots of wildflowers are still showing off. Yet storm clouds on the horizon foretell what's to come. 

The short days (sunset at about 4:30 PM now) make working in the garden a challenge. But every good hour is put to maximum good use. Yesterday, we made a new flower bed for the agapanthus we brought over from Ross House and cleaned up parts of the flower gardens. But the messages from biodiversity groups pleading to leave the leaves on the ground to provide shelter for bumblebees and other insects convinced me to stop short of sweeping them all up. It's all in the interest of pollinators, those they pollinate, and those that eat them. I can surely put some work off if it's going to save the world. 

Autumn has finally arrived

Leaves gone off the trees

We've had wind, lots of it. We've had rain, loads of rain. We've had extraordinarily high tides. We've had warmth for days, but now it has turned cold. The leaves have been blown off the trees, the flowers are shutting down, the bees have gone to sleep. 

A few of the supports in the vineyard have suffered and need replacing. The leaves have fallen off the vines. The must we had fermenting went bad. (Not too upset. Had expected as much.) And the days are very dark indeed as we head into the weary weeks of winter. 

I have signed up for a course on winemaking and I have 6 weeks to complete it before my final exam. My reward will be a certificate I can hang on the wall of the new shed we are building to house the equipment. That may yet get me through the darkness and into light. 

In the meantime, I am trying to find places to fit all the stuff from Alex's mom's house, the beekeeping equipment, and the winery supplies. I need to clear stuff out. It's driving me crazy. 

The road is gone. 

Dock trying to float onto the road

Tide on the driveway

Gusts of >75 knots