The grapes are still growing. Just in case any of you are keeping score. I wonder if there is a gambling market for our little garden. If you bet on shallots this year, you would have lost big, but with grapes you might have come out ahead. Unless you bet on the actual fruit… I can only find one cluster on all 90+ vines. But this is a good thing this year – fruit formation diverts too much of the plant’s energy. Roots are where it’s at for year one.

We still need to install a trellis for the vines. I’ve been searching for sites but haven’t found any I really like. In vineyard terms, we don’t need a large quantity: 22 end posts, 22 mid posts, 22 earth anchors, wire and various other staples and tighteners. I’d really like to build it with native, rot resistant timbers, but they might be hard to find or otherwise unreliable. We will be calling the two somewhat local saw mills to see what they carry.