Mother nature was uncertain of herself this week. We went from 15 degrees below zero (Celsius) to plus 12 and some really Spring-like conditions. However, she did not make things easy for us since during this major temperature inversion we had some very nasty rain falls.
Of course we're now back to below zero and we've also finished the week with a major snow storm.
As usual, this confusing weather still did not deter us from freeing beautiful and very old Concord grape vines.
Perhaps we are starting to get overly sentimental with some of our plants. It took a significant amount of work before we could get to this stage. Probably we would be more assured of production and things would have been easier if we simply plowed over everything and started anew.
You might recall, last week we began with a row of Kiwis which was indistinguishable from our row of grapes. This was due to trees (upright, fallen and partially fallen), a significant amount of brush, and the ever-present thorn bushes.
This week, we ended up with a well-defined row.
Of course, getting there took a lot of chainsaw work (we have nothing but good things to say about our Sthil). The pros would probably have a laugh because we also took out the bush hog and used it in the snow.
Once this was done, we discovered that our trellises were not in great shape. In fact a few posts were completely taken to the ground, only trees provided support for certain vines.
With a bit of ingenuity, we set up a temporary trellising system for these vines, using our trusty Polyamide cable and some old metal T-bars. With this in place, we now had an upright row....that needed some serious pruning.
With vines extending well over 50 feet, I am not sure if our pruning will give us much if anything next fall. But I have to say that grapes were much easier to handle than Kiwis. At least their path is easier to follow and they are less cumbersome to untangle.
Our strategy for the grapes was simple: bring them down to three or four feet to each side (we left a few longer vines where we could, in the hope that we might still obtain some grapes next fall), remove the dead wood, and attempt to bring as much light as possible to the vines we keep.
With this accomplished, we now expect to rebuild a much sturdier trellis. Hopefully the grapes can wait until the fall when we can better assess the situation.
In any case, the result is starting to look like a "real" row of grapes.
We still have some clearing work to do, but we can already imagine where we might go with this set-up. We have a gentle but wooded hill extending to the edge of our property. If these grapes do well, we think we might be able to not only double the length of this row, but also build up at least another three rows of table grapes up our slope.
The next item on our list this week, is courtesy of our neighbour John (from across the road). As most of you know, our objective is to promote local foods and artisan products.
Having read our blog on Black Walnuts, John surprised us by bringing in a large bucketful of beautiful nuts.
Unlike many Ontarians, we now know that we can grow Persian (often called English) Walnuts. However, we did not yet have evidence of this....until John that is. He has two large trees in his backyard producing a rather impressive amount of nuts.
I have to say these are excellent! In fact, fresh as they are, they were much better than any walnut shipped from California (those always seem to have a tannin-like after taste).
One note of caution to would-be growers: squirrels apparently love these (they're much easier to "crack" than Black Walnuts).
This is definitely the kind of thing we want to promote in our country market. Speaking of which.....
Our barn has progressed so much, we can hardly tell where or what we started with!
Since many are now asking about our progress on the restorations to the Victorian house. I leave you this week with a quick update.
Things have slowed somewhat as we have been finalizing the drawings for the remainder of the interior. Now however we have an "addition".
In anticipation of starting our work for the year, we are preparing to "move" our furnishings from the entire west wing of the house into this container!
PS. I do not know anyone in the family that is thrilled about moving...again.
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