Devin Rose at Heroic Virtue Creations
Grape Growing
Wouldn't it be cool to grow grape vines and then make wine out of the
grapes? I thought so, too, some years back, and promptly ordered grapevines from New
York to plant in Texas, breaking the first rule of trying to grow
anything: Go with plants native to your area. I inherited a
non-green thumb from my mother (no offense, Mom, I did inherit a lot of
good things from you!), so take all my advice with a grain of
salt. If I ever get grapes out of my vines, I will post large
pictures here showing them off and me eating them smugly happily.3/11/2006
My grapevines have returned to new life from dormancy and are bursting forth new buds, including flower clusters!
I am hoping that this year in
2006, I will have my first grapes from the stronger vines! This
is the third season that they have been in the ground, and last year
they made it up to the training wire that I strung about 3' 6'' from
the ground.
6/11/2005
I took some pictures of some of my grape vine leaves. These are from two of the strongest vines, and the leaves are looking good this year! The weekly regimen of fungicide/herbicide and dipel dust seems to be keeping the critters off of them.
4/23/2005
After their first year in the ground (2004), my vines' leaves had turned sickly colors and fallen off, bugs had eaten through most of the leaves, and generally speaking the vines looked horrible going into winter. I thought they were all dead for sure, but this year, by the grace and power of God, almost all of them sprang back to life!
Wisening up to the plagues of last year, I have already started spraying organic fungicide and herbicide on them and dumping Dipel worm dust all over the base to stop the killer caterpillars from last year.