Sitting under my own vine

[juliet]

Two years ago we relaid the patio (to make it Better[0]), and put a pergola in, and I planted two grape vines, one at each end[1]. The aim being that over time, they would grow up and over the pergola, and provide shade in the summer when it's needed, and die back in the winter to let more light through. And (obviously) provide tasty grapes.

This year the first patch of shade has been produced! Currently it covers only about one person's worth of sitting, but this is clearly Proof Of Concept, and the vines just need to keep growing. The vine on that side (west) is also covered in bunches of proto-grapes, so as long as I net it in time (last year I didn't, and the birds got the single bunch of grapes, grumble), later in the summer we should have lots of lovely grapes. Annoyingly the other vine is doing much less well, but I will give it another couple of years before I consider uprooting it and trying a different variety.

The raspberries have finally hit their stride, too, so we are already in "just keep eating raspberries" season.

Signed, A Very Satisfied Gardener

[0] Very successfully!
[1] The east one might have been planted the year before. I definitely planted one in 2013 which died, and I can't now remember if I replanted in 2014, or waited til 2015.

Comments

[flick]

Saint Bob Of The Flowerdew always says that you should thin your grapes and then take off the same number of bunches again. And possibly again.

We are not yet at this stage, having had one bunch last year, which the birds ate!

[juliet]

Thank you for the tip! I will read up and sacrifice some bunches. I should shove the netting on sometime soon - it's nowhere near time but I will be cross if I put it off for so long that the birds wade in again! In theory (she says hopefully) in the longer term if I train it properly the leaves on the top should keep the birds off the grapes underneath. That has worked well with other berries in the past. I don't really bother training the raspberries properly so they sag all over the place and we don't seem to lose any to birds, who I assume can't easily spot them from above.

Which reminds me, I should probably have a look at the apple tree as well -- it's only a little one so could probably use some of the apples being thinned.

[flick]

I was looking at our old apple trees today and thinking it was getting to be time to give them a good shake. Our baby bramley didn't flower at all this year, but the other new ones could probably do with thinning in a few weeks.

We've got a new morello cherry this year, too, which has lots of fruit forming. I suspect I'll have to net that before the birds notice it.

I'm plotting a strawberry bed, and wondering if the thing about painting small stones to look like strawberries really works. The idea is that you put them around the plants before the fruit gets ripe and the birds try to eat them and give up, so they don't bother with the actual fruit. If it works, it would be handy!

[transcendancing]

OM NOM NOM NOM RASPBERRIES!

[dancefloorlandmine]

At my parents' old house, there was a pergola with an established vine (apparently described by the estate agent as "pergola with creeping shrub", to the muttered outrage of the seller), which did exactly what you're wanting from yours, so I can vouch for their effectiveness. Obviously, not sure how long it had taken to colonise the roughly 8ft square pergola to a suitable depth, but it didn't take too long to attach itself to the pergola extension my dad added. It might be a factor of current size, of course. Anyway, sum total of that rambling reminiscence - hope you have a nice shady space sooner rather than later!

(At my parents' previous house, there was a monstrous greenhouse at the end of the garden, the full width of the plot, the frame of which was pretty much entirely supported by a pretty much dead ancient vine. Every time the wind blew, some more panes of glass would rain down, so one of the first changes my dad made to the garden was to remove that. Once the wood and glass were gone, my brother and I (both under ten) were allowed to 'help' by hitting the low walls with sledgehammers we could barely lift.)

[juliet]

"Pergola with creeping shrub" !! I am not surprised the seller was cross!

I am optimistic for a larger patch of shade next year -- I suspect this is the sort of thing that once initially established gets going quite fast.

[dancefloorlandmine]

It produced bunches of tiny grapes, too, but mostly they ended up as fuel for birds. Some managed to make it to "really small grape" size.

Sounds like a reasonable optimism. Fingers crossed.