Once again, this doesn’t appear to be the year to make wine from our grapes. The birds beat us to the fruit.

About two weeks ago, I saw some evidence of bird damage and rather naively thought there were plenty of grapes for everyone. I also thought that netting the rows would be a large expense and massive time-suck. Ordering netting would take a while to arrive and who knows what might happen in the between.

So, I did nothing. Actually, I hoped a little. But admittedly not with all my heart, since I honestly wasn’t looking forward to the de-stemming and washing and crushing.  We’ve been talking about scaling back the rows of vines so that they would be more manageable. “Know your limits” – that’s what grandma used to say. Not my grandma, but I’m sure someone’s grandma said that. I think we could better handle about five rows (currently have eleven). With five rows, I could potentially install a simple deer fence around the whole vineyard and bird netting could go up and over the top of the deer fence… at least then we’d only have frost, bugs and fungus to contend with.

Surprisingly well, thank you.

It’s surprising to us in that we didn’t really do this right and continue to make classic blunders. We do not spray them consistently with copper (anti-fungal), and would rather not need to spray them at all. I do not know really the best way or the best time to trim them (I experimented with later trimming this year). They are on a nice hill, but the slope is also home to incredibly invasive quack grass (and other nasty weeds). And some vines have been “accidentally” hit with the mower. I think it’s safe to say we’ve been a tad neglectful and borderline abusive.

And yet I expect them to appease me. I want them to pose for these photos and more to come. I want them to produce lots of tight little clusters this year. I do not want then to succumb to a late frost as we had last year – and just barely managed to avoid a few nights ago. I understand my irrationality. I want them to produce with little help from me. I want them to want to live and fend for themselves. Some of them probably can and will… at least for a time. And as a spot is vacated, perhaps an apple tree, tomato plant or blackberry will take it’s place. I think I’d be okay with that.

The grapevines need to be pruned fairly soon. Hope we don’t see another late frost this year.

It’s almost a zen job. There is just enough concentration required that I can’t seem to think about other things. Only grasses and pig weed fill my mind as I make my way down the row. It’s almost as if my mind fills more with weeds as I remove them from the rows of grapes. I remain uncertain if either mind or vines are improved for my efforts. But the vines certainly look better. Aesthetics are important.

We could not have asked for a nicer weekend in the middle of March. Not too windy, lots of sun, mild temps all help to make my winter lethargy melt away. I seriously feel like I got some sun today. 

And we were productive too! How can you not be when the weather is finally this beautiful?! And it was just in time for the grapevines. Any longer and they might have started bud swell. About half of our grapes needed to be cut back to year one. They were not tall enough. This year they should easily reach the first wire. Installing the wires is a project for when the ground is completely thawed as I still need 22 line posts and two end posts.

Planted more seeds today too: 2 hot peppers, 2 sweet peppers, brussel sprouts, artichokes, yellow tomato, and some zinnia from last years garden just to see what might sprout. Good times ahead!

Things are starting to ripen. Still a bit sour yet, but this is encouraging.

We were not really suppose to let any grapes grow this first season, but it could not be helped. These clusters were concealed within the grow tubes. And it doesn’t appear that the vine’s growth was hampered at all due to these little bunches. Now we just need to keep watch and make sure no deer or birds beat us to the picking.

I also noticed wild grapes on the property are ripening. It will be interesting to compare the taste.

New to the blog! Just added some gallery pages. On the right, there should be a galleries section – click the gallery name to enter. These are some of the same photos selected at random above, but there is no way to view them all from that random feature.

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.

They are tiny cute at this stage. Most of the vines are doing well in their blue tube shelters. A couple have stretched their way to the top, but several show signs of miniature fruit. Amazing. It will be difficult if not impossible to snip off these little clusters. This first year root development is more crucial and fruit should not be encouraged. But I think we will end up with a couple of fruits, just to make sure they taste okay.

We are sore. Wow. Achy. But look at all that was accomplished. It’s outstanding. We are awesome. First I marked off the spacing for the vines, sinking a bamboo stick in every seven feet. Then crossing slits were cut in the landscape fabric and 99 little holes were augered – that was an extreme workout. Some of the holes proved to be a little too damp to use, but they might dry out in time.

Anne was busy following my hole digging with planting. She finished all but three rows today. Each of our rows has nine vines. There is a ton of invasive grass on this hillside — we are hoping the fabric and mulch will take care of that. Anne carefully extracted all the little roots from the holes as she planted.

Next step is to install the grow tubes – they are tubes that help grapes grow

This is a labor intensive process. Hope we never need to do it again. Not even really sure we need to do it this first time, but we are doing it. The idea is to keep the grapes weed and grass free. Most of the books tell you to prepare rows the year or two before. We like to read the books and then do it any which way we can. Our first step was to hire a tiller to till up 12 rows approximately 80 feet long. Then we decided to cover the rows with landscape fabric and mow around them.

And then the hard part. All that mulch from my previous post is painstakingly loaded and unloaded covering the rows of fabric. I might be putting it on too thick. Or Anne might be going too thin. Or maybe, between the two of us, we are applying it just right.

(The wind is pounding today. This photo is taken from indoors through the spotted window. I was taking a break from the breezes.) As of this moment, we have six more rows to mulch and two more to cover with fabric. *Sigh*