Good grapes and bad grapes
One of the hardest parts of running a
homestead is killing. It took us quite a while to wrap our heads
around killing our chickens...but it seems to be taking me even longer
to wrap my head around pulling out perennials which just aren't
functioning properly.
Monday, I realized that we had ripe grapes on one of the Golden Muscat
vines we put in this spring in the well-drained soil of the mule
garden. The grape vines there, despite being less than a year
old, have grown rapidly until their tendrils nearly touch the next
plant over along the trellis.
The mule garden grapes' exuberance makes it hard to continue ignoring
the sad state of the grapes along the driveway. These grapes are
anywhere from one to three years old, but none have ever fruited. Most
of the vines there are French
hybrids, so the Japanese beetles have eaten the leaves down to lace
despite my thrice-weekly picking. Their decline is exacerbated by
soil that is pure clay where water puddles during wet weeks.
And yet, even though my mule garden grapes have done more in one year
than these grapes have done in three, I have a hard time pulling the
driveway grapes out. Why is it easier for me to kill a spare
rooster or bottom of the pecking order hen than to kill a grape vine?
Shame-faced plug: Check out the chicken
waterer that funds this blog.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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