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.