Category Archives: Gardening

Grape Expectations

We got our zinfandel grape plant, Zaragoza, last May after falling in love with wine (growing, making, drinking- you name it).  She started growing like crazy so I used a wire tomato plant cage (which I clipped and bent open), some wire, and a wooden stake to create a trellis. After a long winter & spring of plumbing disasters which required moving the grape plant (don’t worry- the plant went into hibernation for the winter so it wasn’t disturbed), the trellis began to look a little (okay, a lot) worse for wear.  I decided to give the trellis a little love this weekend. Sorry that the wire is hard to see in the pics! :)

For those of you who have never seen grape growing on a vineyard, this website does a great job at explaining the Vertical Shoot Positioned (VSP) trellis system I am using for my “upright” growing grapes.  I am training the shoot to the bottom wire. Once she gets a bit bigger this year, I will get taller wooden stakes and the guide wires back up like last year (off of the sides of the tomato cage trellis).

Source: http://www.ristcanyonvineyards.com/html/tip5.html

Zaragoza didn’t produce any fruit her first year but she already has 4 bundles starting to grow this year.  Look at the difference in the size of these bundles over 2 weeks! Who wants to help make & drink our first bottle of wine?!

Backyard Cemetery Update

Okay, so I got home from work yesterday and the grave in our backyard had grown deep enough to fit two bodies (why do we have a grave in our backyard? Read more here!).  The good news is that he found the sewer pipe so the hole is unlikely to get bigger.  The bad news is that if you have more than two dead bodies to hide, you are out of luck.Update: Wow. Okay I was wrong… I forgot they had an entire second half of the yard to destroy this afternoon.  This “little inconvenience” had better come with a landscaper to help clean up.

Positively Adorable :)

Call me a sentimental fool but I saw these cards by Positively Green on Saturday and thought they were adorable! Every couple has their own little jokes and things that remind them of each other. One of those things for us is a seahorse (long story… but you will notice them in our living room crate among other places). So the seahorse card caught my eye right away when we were shopping at Handmade. Then the giraffes were so cute I had to buy both. :)

I plan to get some frames for these guys and hang them in our new workspace (YAY OUR DESKS ARE ON THE WAY!). So stay tuned!

 

P.S. On an unrelated note, here’s what is going on in our backyard today…
No, it’s not a grave. The plumber is replacing the sewer pipe that runs through the backyard. Hopefully this means fewer plumbing problems!