…of winter cycling. Somewhere down there is a concrete farm road. Somewhere…
…Orbis.Well, not quite accurate – it’s actually Urbi et Orbi (“to the city and to the world”) – and Orbis, a small town in the Palatinate with a population of…
There are red grapes with white flesh. That would be Pinot Noir plus a few others. That’s one of the varieties they use to make champagne. Which is…basically a white…
Riding through the fields in Hechtsheim can be quite traumatic….
“Waste not, want not” is what my granddad used to say. Sloppy stuff seen during the Grumbeerernte*. Local dialect for “potato harvest” What was that? You thought they’re called Kartoffeln…
…blowing bubbles. The bubble machine at the Eulchen and Friends Biergarten in the courtyard of the Kurfürstliches Schloss (Electors’ Palace). Eulchen beer, wine from the Weinraumwohnung, catering from Brits KWIZIN,…
A bit like a Scheurebe, but without the shyness.” Talk about plays on words….! The girls working at Eva Vollmer’s vineyard hoolie in Mainz-Ebersheim the other week wore a variety…
…..Grade 1 through 5. Fresh out of the ground. Could have nicked it. Didn’t. Grown under foil, you see….
This is the asparageous equivalent of battery chickens – cover your asparagus mounds with plastic (black on one side to warm them up, white to cool them down) and sell…
Looking over Rheinhessen’s vineyards towards renewable power generation on the distant ridge. Ugly as shit, but hey, they’re subsidised….
The cycle track along the Rhein takes you past some interesting stuff, but none more impressive than the massive floodgates (fish belly flap gates, if you want precision…) set into…
This is Jürgen Hofmann’s 2013 Eselspfad white burgundy Prune the vines to focus on one shoot, manage the canopy to let the grapes breath freely and get good sunlight, cut…
…doubtlessly another excellent wine from Jürgen Hofmann. Twin bubble air lock
..said Mother Beech to Jimmy Sapling. “Mister Forester will come along, chop you down and pile you up with all the other naughty trees…”
Pick your own pansies. Katrin Eder, responsible for environment, energy and transport in Mainz, comes up with some good ideas. Last year, they planted veges instead of the ubiquitous bedding…
…berry mild weather at the moment…
Arborially speaking…
Lo-tech greenhouse. Sort of….
Try ’em/like ’em. buy ’em at Appel Happel in Lerchenberg
So when’s the last time YOU saw a haystack…?
Harvest aftermath
The recent plague of babies population explosion around here has left us with a surfeit of storks (I have it on v. good authority that that’s the collective noun.) which…
Grasshopper, actually. They grow them big around here – this one was the size of a small dog. I kept out of the way in case it mistook me for…
…or not to spray, that is the question. Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Chemicals, Or to put up with bits of…
It’s a sad commentary on the times that orchardists are having to fence off their groves and risk being beaten up (happened the other week) if they challenge someone stripping…
Drais is a village with a fair bit of history. Settlements dating back to the Celts and the late Iron Age (850–450 B.C.E.). Pretty much par for the course around…
Non, le Gare de Mayence. Cornrowed lavender at the main station
…our daily Fragaria vesca. Aka wild strawberry, woodland strawberry, Alpine strawberry, European strawberry, or fraises des bois. Some plants just TURNED UP unannounced in the flower/herb bed next to the…
…and see us sometime. Cartier-Bresson stuff – no tweaking and certainly no pot of red paint to brighten things up.
Local stuff. And cheap – after the long wait, everything’s come onto the market at the same time. Suits me…
Mainz Daily Photo 