Berlin-Neukölln: Air plants at the Saturday market

Two surprises awaited me this past Saturday as I took a walk from Neukölln to Kreuzberg, getting acclimated in Berlin again after a week in the heat of Spain. First, I realized that one of my favorite greenmarkets, the “Turkish market” (held on Tuesdays and Fridays on Maybachufer), has spun off a third, Saturday market dedicated to fabrics and handcrafts. There, I was doubly surprised to find an airy, minimal stand in shades of dusty green and creamy white, offering an array of strange air plants with nary a root or speck of soil in sight.

El Palmar: village plant research

Spring on Spain’s Costa de la Luz (the Atlantic part of the coastline) is an explosion of wildflower blossoms, from red poppies and yellow-and-white daisies to purple thistles and blue borage. I plucked a few while staying in the dusty little village of El Palmar to study more closely.

Berlin-Friedrichshain: Club kids

Big bro and kid bro dandelion hanging out in front of the techno club ://aboutblank. Giving them a once over: cool couple hops and Ailanthus altissima.

Berlin: Field flowers on Oranienstraße

In a grungy steel planter in front of a cute little mite of a delicatessen in Kreuzberg,

Berlin: Restaurant plants before opening time

In this restaurant in Berlin-Friedrichshain the other day, in the morning before the restaurant had opened for the day, a crew of plants were chilling in the window, from oranges to orchids.

Berlin: banana tree

Berlin: Bärlauch, or, cooking spring

As I’ve mentioned, spring has felt massively delayed to many Berliners this year. Maybe our expectations have been warped by global warming, but it feels like we’ve been waiting, shivering at near-zero temperatures, on the brink of spring for ages. We’ve watched reports on TV about Germany’s beloved spring crop, white asparagus, whose harvest has been delayed for more than four weeks by the cold rain. Same for my favorites, bright pink rhubarb and Bärlauch, the tender wild garlic greens that Berliners forage in city parks, which both have been nowhere to be seen… until this week!