A Horticultural Shortcoming

 

Day 354:  For all of the fact that I have had some quite unusual horticultural successes (soil layering the contorted filbert comes immediately to mind), there is one area in which I have a grievous shortcoming: pruning grapes. It sounds so easy when you read about it! Grapes fruit on last year's wood, so you remove two-year, woody growth, prune this year's back to a manageable level and, as they say, Bob's yer uncle. However, when it comes to turning policy into practice, and you're out in the field with a crisp winter morning turning your ears red and your fingers into digital popsicles, identifying which is which...and harder, tracing it back through the spaghetti of vines to where it attaches to the main trunk...presents an altogether different prospect. I have had one or two good yields following my tender ministrations over the 35 years of this plant's life, but for the most part, I get only a handful of bunches or none, depending on who gets there first after the sugar sets, me or the jaybirds. In fact, one year I was expecting to pick roughly ten pounds based on what was on the vine before bedtime, but the following morning, I discovered the jays had cleaned me out right down to the last grape. We've had a few nippy nights, and I've been sneaking single-grape tastes for a couple of days now. My sample grape this morning was sweet enough for me, so I harvested the four small bunches which were the only fruit to develop this year. One bunch was already fragile, a good sign that they were ripe because the grapes dropped from their stems into my bowl when I bumped the cluster. I have just enough for a snack, although there may be a few upset jaybirds when they try to find their long-anticipated lunch.

Grower's Tithe

 

Day 346: Here you see the grower's tithe. That is not to say that this portion of the grape yield will be set aside for my little feathered friends and furry foes; no, this is the portion they left for me, and it's just an ounce shy of a pound: ten percent, as tithes are generally said to be. Had I not picked them yesterday (and some of the fruit is a little tart), today's rain would have ruined the bunches. Even so, it's a better yield than I've had in the thirty years past, with one or two exceptions. I suspect that Interlaken would not be recommended for Growing Zones 6b-7a, although the plant itself is hardy to those temperatures. It's in the length of season where it falls down. We just don't have enough days between hard frosts for the fruit to ripen. This year, it got an earlier start, a little boost from a warmer Spring. That said, I am grateful for what harvest hangs hidden in the leaves where the jays and chipmunks never think to look, and even if I don't get grapes, every year I use a few dozen leaves for dolmas. It's called making the best of things even when they don't work out exactly as planned.

Grape Expectations

Day 326: I am envious of people with phone apps which can turn everyday photos into works of art imitative of the Old Masters. Not having a smartphone, the best I can do is fiddle settings in PaintShop Pro until I come up with something like this. Oh, well. That said, I have great...or should I say grape? expectations for the harvest this year, provided the jays don't get them all before they're fully ripe. The vine is laden with bunches, large and small, and through no effort on my part. I've tried several different pruning methods over the years to no avail, so this last winter, I threw my hands in the air and said, "Do what you will, grape! I'm going to leave you to your own designs." I see so many old grapevines rambling over garage roofs, clambering up fences, each one full of grapes in season: ignored, let go wild, untended, and fruiting like crazy. Maybe that's what Interlaken wanted. Technically, I suppose you'd call it a wine grape, or at least the friend who gave it to me dug it up, 25 years old if it was a day, and about 25' long on both sides when he delivered it only grew grapes with a mind to making wine. The fruit is small and seedless, tastes something like a Concord. The vine is now almost 50 years old and, in its tenure here, I've harvested a respectable crop of grapes only two or three times, missing one opportunity when I thought I'd leave the bunches through one night of light frost, only to discover that the jays prefer grapes a little tart. When I went out in the morning, Tupperware bowl tucked under my arm, there was not a single grape remaining, so thorough had they been in the hours just after dawn. Maybe I should wrap netting around some of the better bunches to preserve them for my own enjoyment. I don't mind sharing part of the harvest, just not all of it.

A Grape Achievement!

Day 343: A grape achievement! After many years of experimenting with different pruning styles and methods and no grapes to show for it, I finally just threw my hands in the air and walked away with a glare over my shoulder and a cranky comment directed at the vine, "Okay, maybe if I just let you grow wild, you'll give me some grapes." Being ignored was just what the plant needed. It is absolutely loaded with grapes this year, and some of the bunches are ready to pick and eat. The variety is Interlaken, small but seedless, with a flavour reminiscent of Concords. I've never tried making jelly with green grapes, but if any variety would be a good candidate for an experiment, Interlaken would be my choice. So far, I've kept the jays and Bambi and his three friends at bay with netting, although I spent a large part of yesterday evening chasing deer around the yard. For now, though, I'm just going to nibble them. Oh, they are sweet and good!

Not The Grape-est Harvest

Day 10: Pruning grapes is an art I have yet to master. My fishing buddy's brother-in-law Eddie tried to teach me, but his instructions were so heavily inflected with swear-words and backtracking (amusingly so) that I was never able to pick the principle out of the verbal detritus. I've succeeded in getting a good crop two or three times, but it's been only by sheer luck or accident. I know that grapes fruit on last year's new wood, but identifying it in winter is not as easy as it sounds, and I usually resort to simply leaving two nodes on every cane regardless of its age. While in principle you might think that would result in a success rate of 50%, it never seems to do so. Admittedly, weather plays a role and our cool early summer may have come at the wrong time to set fruit, but I really had to hunt high and low among the leaves to find a second cluster of grapes equivalent to this pitiful offering.

Interlaken

Day 330: I'm ashamed to admit that I have never gotten the hang of pruning grapes, unable to tell a bull cane from a bearer which is simply leggy, never able to remember if I leave two-year old wood or the vines which grew last year. I've read the book. I've even been tutored by an expert, and yet my attempts invariably result in a grapeless grapevine, jays notwithstanding.

My Interlaken vine was transplanted as old stock twenty-five years ago. A former neighbour raised wine grapes with a few table varieties on the side, and brought it to me in the back of his truck, a rootstock the size of a washtub and arms thirty feet long. I cut it back radically after he drove away, and the following year, I harvested about ten pounds of grapes, unaware of what I'd done to encourage them. In subsequent years, I got a bunch or two, but staying ahead of the Steller's Jays proved difficult. They seemed to prefer their fruit just slightly tarter than my idea of "ripe," and thus I often went out with bowl under arm only to find that the vine had been denuded just before dawn. One year I got lucky. The stars aligned (aided by my fishing buddy's brother-in-law's pruning skills), and upon harvest, I brought in a whopping twenty pounds. He was the one who tried to teach me the pruner's art, but when left to my own designs, I butchered the job and went without a single fruit.

I began to wonder about the grapevines I'd observed rambling over abandoned garages and rural fences. They never seemed to be short of fruit, and it was plain to see that no one was tending them. I decided to test the Ignore Method. "Go, grape! You can have the whole damn garage if you want it!" Although not quite loyal to my promise to let it go wild (I brutally cut back some forty-foot extensions with the lawn mower and pulled others down out of the Philadelphus), Interlaken seems to like its freedom, held in check only by the bird-netting I threw over it when I saw it setting fruit. Today, I picked about five pounds of deliciously sweet green grapes. Yummy! And there are more to come!

It's Just Not Fair!

Day 357: Oh, those jaybirds! It's been a week or so since I checked on the grapes, and the first thing I noticed was that the rampant sprawl of vine which normally covers the back side of the garage had fallen from its supports, undoubtedly brought down by the recent rains. I peered into the jumble of leaves expecting to see one or more of the two dozen bunches of small green fruit in the tangle, but no, there were no grapes among the greenery. I searched more deeply and found one bunch, a dozen grapes, no more, and the work of the jays was evident in a neatly severed stem. They'd left me nothing but a nominal tithe as thanks for my cultivation. "It's just not fair!" I said. "You stinkers cleaned me out again!"

In all honesty, I'm laughing. A human being wants the sweetest fruit and therefore waits for the first frost to set the sugar. The jays are not so choosy. Even the lightest touch of sweetness is sufficient for them, and a pleasant addition to their diet. These few were still a bit tangy on my tongue. Yes, I could foil my corvid cousins with a net or bits of flashy foil, but my taste for grapes can be satisfied by a trip to the grocery store; they don't have that option. I grow grapes for jaybirds, and should be more appreciative of the size of my allotment.