Is That a Vineyard?

Yep!  I planted my 12-grapvine vineyard on the weekend, woot!

More than a month ago I prepared three, 40’ x 18” rows  spaced 8 feet apart in a little-used area of our backyard.  I dug up and rototilled the rows and also incorporated some mushroom compost to add more organic matter to the loamy natural soil.

Most of my cuttings have been hardening-off outside for three weeks and many had pretty good root development.  Unlike my vegetable transplants, I did not add compost to each hole but I did add a small amount of bone meal pellets for the roots.  I installed some stakes made of scrap 1.5”x1.5” spruce and will simply train the vines up the stake as they grow.

Concord cutting.

Very nice root development on the Concord.

Planted Concord with stake and wood chip mulch.

My backyard vineyard.

I planted the following varieties:

- Four plants of Reliance which is a red table grape.

- Two plants of a white (green) table/wine grape whose name is just a number.

- Two plants of a white (green) table/wine grape from a friend of the family.

- Two plants of Marquette which is a blue wine grape that Fred is predominantly growing.

- Two plants of Concord blue wine/table grapes from my main vine along the garage.

I have not started my trellis yet.  The engineering of a solution to a unique problem and time mean putting this off until  late summer or fall.