Red Hot Chili Peppers

Apologies for the long absence. Life's been happening while I was away. Work, driving lessons, renovating the house, personal stuff...But in the meantime, tomatoes have ripened, redcurrants have been picked and courgettes were harvested. I feel like I've been living off courgettes and tomatoes for ages now! :) After what feels like weeks of rain I took the opportunity to take some pictures during a brief spell of sunshine today.

The Tigerellas are slowly getting there, despite the incessant rain. 

 They actually taste quite nice, too! There's a ton of them, so I may have to resort to drying them, as well as making chutney and tomato sauce.So if anyone's got a good tomato recipe, let me know!

 Most of them still look a bit green, and one or two have burst. The rest look ok.

The marigolds I planted a few weeks ago to cover the soil in the tomato and courgette pots have really come along as well. They add a nice splash of colour to green leaves and stems.








Some chili-tastic impressions:

 Lemon chili flowers.

 Mini Hot Lemon! I'm really looking forward to trying that one. A bright yellow chili that tastes of lemons? Yes, please!

 Poblanos

 The "INEOS/Sasol" chili I got from my students. Second harvest. The first was delicious!

 Another Poblano.

And more Lemon Drops. I'll have chillies coming out of my ears!

 One flower I'd thoroughly recommend to anyone: my little chocolate flower! Looks gorgeous, smells divine.

And that's it for today. :)

And so it begins...

Exciting times! It's time those tomatoes and chillies were re-potted again, but this time to their final home outside. So off I went again to the local DIY store, boyfriend in tow, to get the necessary equipment, soil and pots. We also found a net to cover the redcurrants, to protect them from those pesky magpies. But that's just an aside :)

I still had seven small Lemon Drops left, but as my first chili plant had survived the winter and seems to be doing well now and because I also still have a baby Poblano chili waiting to be re-potted I decided to keep only two and find new homes for the rest. I love chillies, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing! And so, under the watchful eye of my (also brand-new) Garden Cosmos, the re-homing began.

 Ta-daa! The chillies in their new home.

And now I needed to do the same with the tomatoes. This time, I kept three plants.

 Trying out the arrangement. The bamboo poles are from my boyfriend's garden and supported beans last year. The pot I had found on Ebay. :)

Looks good, so time to actually plant them. Incidentally, this pot turned out to be a bottomless pit into which almost 15 litres of soil disappeared!

 Aaaand done!

 I hope they'll feel at home here.

And that they produce lots of big, stripy tomatoes! To finish up, I scattered some marigold seeds round the plants as well. This should help keep unwelcome insects away, as well as provide some nice colour.

 The Tumbling Toms are coming along very nicely.

Soon I'll be able to have them in my salad.

What actually happened to those tomatoes and chillies I didn't want to keep? Well, since several of my students had been asking about them, as well as my boss, I packed the remaining plants in my big spaghetti pot to protect them, and took them to work with me. The looks you get when you casually get on a train carrying a pot full of plants! It was quite funny. :) I'm happy to tell you that every plant has found a lovely new home where they'll be well cared for. Now I just need to get my spaghetti pot back... My student took his tomato home in it.

The Storm

Well, it's been a while since my last post. Basically this happened. Winds of up to 150 km/h, torrential rain, thunder and lightning. 150 km/h! That would be 93 mph, or Beaufort 12. Hurricane force, or, as the Beaufort Scale puts it: "Severe widespread damage to vegetation and structures. Debris and unsecured objects are hurled about." And severe widespread damage there certainly was. I returned home from a lovely (if somewhat scorchingly hot) weekend at la casa boyfriend just in time to witness my biggest and scariest storm to date. This was the balcony last Tuesday, the day after the storm:

 A bit ruffled, but otherwise ok.

 Flying leaves and bits of trees everywhere. But Tumbling Tom survived!

 Even the frogs are still there.

 I found random branches in all sorts of corners.

 I managed to clear the blue shelf and the windowsill before anything could go flying, but I did get drenched in the process. It was well worth it though, as absolutely nothing got broken or damaged.

 Just ruffled.

 Trees! On MY balcony!

But that was the extent of the storm damage, as far as the balcony was concerned. On the roads, everything looked a lot different. A lot of grand old trees have simply been uprooted and branches had been snapped off. Most roads were blocked and all public transport was suspended, leaving many folk stranded and unable to return home or go to work. I myself was forced to stay at home on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I write this, public transport is still not back to normal. Quite a few trains aren't running because the tracks are covered in trees or overhead lines are damaged. This makes the journey to work quite an adventure! But as I'm able to get to work at all now, I am certainly not complaining! :)
My neighbourhood:

Doesn't look to good, huh? I really don't know how long it will take to return to normal. Fire brigades, volunteers, the army and the Technisches Hilfswerk (Federal Agency for Technical Relief, THW) have been working round the clock to clear the streets and repair the damage. But the to-do list is long, and many trees are beyond saving. Six people have lost their lives in the storm and its aftermath.
Suffice to say that last week was not a good week here in North Rhine-Westphalia.