11. Life in the vineyard
Additionally to the many cultivated areas there are also traditional vine terraces on the Ölberg – since after all, the small vineyard location “Alter Oelberg” belongs to the best locations in the Breisgau and Markgräflerland. From the hiking trail, you can clearly discover the living conditions often evoking a bloomy layer under the vines. Even in winter there are the blossoms of the Persian Speedwell, the Red Deadnettle or of the Crane’s Bill. In early times, the winemakers loosened the soil under the vines to provide the vine roots with air and habitat. This method favoured mainly small-sized bulbous plants which could even multiply by splitting with the pick. Even today the early spring is dark blue in the vineyards because of many grape hyacinths. In some places, wonderful Stars of Bethlehem join in May. Along the embankments and walls, you can find the flowering fumitory or the old medicinal plant celandine nearly the whole year.
It is totally obvious, that the variety of crawling, buzzing and fluttering insects does not come off badly considering that great abundance of flowers. The Ölberg sets the table for our wild bees. Especially bugs such as the noticeable rose chafer, searching for blossoms, like nibbling on flower umbels growing along embankments and footpaths. Big bugs are the daily bread for our kestrels breeding year after year in the church tower of Saint George. Herewith the circle of an extremely vital habitat in the vineyard of the Ölberg closes.