Three years ago I planted a grape vine. It did remarkably well. Until snails ate all the leaves in a single night. It recovered, but was not healthy. Then I had to dig it up and put it in a pot, well, half a wine cask, actually. Then, when I moved to my current apartment I tried to lift the cask but almost gave up the ghost in the attempt. It must have been 500 lbs of cask, dirt, water, and vine. So I did the only think I could do. I grabbed hold of the vine near the dirt and pulled, freeing the vine but leaving more than half the roots in the cask.
In February 2007 I put it in the ground outside my new apartment - scrunched into a tiny space betwen blue star rosemary and some other ornamental plants - (No, I didn't ask the landlord.) and hoped, and watered. In May there were leaves. I waited all summer to see grapes but there were none. Then the leaves fell off and the vine might as well have been dead. But it wasn't.
A few weeks ago leaves began to appear again. And as of today there are fourteen of these...
2 comments:
Wooooooooooo-hoooooooooooo!
Will they grow up to be grapes?!
A family member had a grape vine all across his back porch. It was so thick it shaded the sun! Delicious smell and delicious grapes. I've never seen one like that again.
And this was in the middle of West Philadelphia, PA in a row home!
I hope they grow up to be grapes, and graduate into wine. But it is a long time from now until September, and there are birds, snails, glassy-winged sharpshooters, unseasonal rain, extreme heat, and a dozen other things that can go wrong.But if nothing goes wrong, I think I might get a couple of bottles of cabernet out of the vine this year.
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