The Urban Vineyard

Pruning Part II

urbangrapegrower — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:13:42 +0000

Have continued pruning. Am trying for woody shoots out of the initial two shoots. Like the picture below.

I have new found respect for the art of grape growing. And I’ve never even tried making wine!

One thing I should add here. I’ve read that if you are growing vines out in the field that you shouldn’t fertilize them. I’m not doing that since in container gardening the constant water causes the nutrients to leach out of the soil and through the bottom of the pot. I’ve been using granulated, MiracleGro for flowers and fruits and vegetables. Although, let me just say I am skeptical that I will ever get grapes.

Pruning, pruning

urbangrapegrower — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:54:08 +0000

I’ve been a little remiss in writing but a couple of weeks ago I finally did my first pruning. I selected the strongest two shoots and pruned away the rest of all the growth. Wondering, what it would be like to prune 10 to 20 acres of vines instead of three. I took some photos, you can see them in my Flickr stream.

They’re actually plants!

urbangrapegrower — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:25:10 +0000

Well it’s been almost 20 days, and it turns out that they’re actually plants. Exciting stuff. Well, I’m excited. I’m starting to wonder what I have to do next. I’m going to have to read the instructions that my three little vines came with. I’ve been watering them regularly and fertilizing them with MiracleGro for flowers and fruits and vegetables.

Here’s a photo of Vine A that I took yesterday.

Another of Vine B also taken yesterday.

Vine C, also taken yesterday

Start of Week Three

urbangrapegrower — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:35:58 +0000

I haven’t posted for awhile because every post would’ve been, “well, today they still look like sticks.” Kinda boring really. However, now there has been some significant change and I’m pretty excited. Here are the photos.

Vine A.

Vine A is the slowest growing of the three. I was worried about it. And then a few days ago I realized that the trellis was blocking sunlight. So I moved the trellis so that sunlight could hit the vine, and bam, and it started putting out new growth. You can see more photos by clicking on my flicker stream in the flickr bar on the right hand column.

Vine B is doing pretty well, here are a few fotos.

So far so good.

And Vine C is really growing like a weed.

Yesterday was sunny and warm, in the low 80′s. Today is rainy and cool. Stay tuned!

Urban Vineyard Tips

urbangrapegrower — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:34:09 +0000

Tie-on

Originally uploaded by Urban Grape Grower

Just a short note to show how I keep the trellises from blowing over in a storm. When you live above the 5th floor everything turns into a sail. I tie them to the railing with this plastic tie material that they use for tying up young trees. You can buy it at any nursery.

The Daily Vine

urbangrapegrower — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:22:43 +0000

Great news! Only day three and already signs of growth.

I have given them the very exciting names of vines A, B, and C. I spent too many years in a lab.

In any case here are the photos,

Vine A doesn’t look as good as the other two.

Here’s Vine B

And Vine C, which I think is the most exciting.

Vineyard Inhabitants

urbangrapegrower — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:04:01 +0000

I’ve said I was going to go over the vineyard inhabitants. They consist of various assorted other plants, and my farm dog, Chip.

See photos of other vineyard inhabitants

Slacker Blogger

urbangrapegrower — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:26:52 +0000

Okay, so I didn’t tell you about the other inhabitants of the vineyard yesterday. Working for a living, farming the balcony, and taking care of the farm animals is hard work.

Today however, that’s a different story. This morning it’s a pleasant 70 degrees F out here on the balcony. And, according to the NOAA weather widget for Mac we will be reaching a pleasant 75 degrees here in Washington, DC today.

Here I might add, I am a little concerned about one of the sticks, so far it still looks a bit stickish, whereas the other two are showing plant-like features.

More later…..

Dinner among the vines

urbangrapegrower — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:27:56 +0000

Okay, so it was really dinner among the sticks. But it was a nice warm 72 degrees here in Washington, DC — my first outside dinner of the year. The sticks look pretty much the same as they did yesterday. This is going to be like a reality TV show that moves really slowly, and you hope no one gets voted off/keels over from poor plant care. One of the sticks has a little green bud (it was there yesterday) so I took a better picture of it today. Despite this sign of planthood, I am still suspicious that these might just turn out to be sticks with roots.

Notes to self: I need to find some way of measuring the weather on my balcony.

Tomorrow: The other inhabitants of the vineyard

Day One: The vines have arrived!

urbangrapegrower — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:30:06 +0000

Last September I decided that I was going to try and grow grape vines on my urban balcony in the Spring. So I did some Internet shopping and ordered three Chardonnay vines from Double A Vineyards in Fredonia, NY.

They were scheduled to ship on April 7, so a couple of weeks ago I began to think about where I was going to put them.

I had three planters already (12.5″L x 12″W x 11″H. Then because I’m not in a vineyard I went out and bought three trellises, rather wire.

here is a photo of trellises in the planters.

Anyway, today the vines arrived. They came via UPS in this package:

I opened it up and they were wrapped in plastic like this:

Inside that they were packed in damp, shredded paper like this:

The vineyard shipped them with planting instructions. They’re grafted plants so the instructions said to plant the vines with the graft 2-3 inches above the soil. My planters are a little shallow and are about 4 inches above the soil so we’ll have to see what happens. The instructions also say to immediately after planting to cover the graft with soil. As I live up above the fifth floor and it gets windy this will be impossible. So again, we’ll just have to see what happens. The instructions also say it is important to cover the graft with soil every winter and remove the soil in the spring. I will have to investigate further why this is.

Here is how they look once they’re in the pot. Kind of like sticks in the ground.

Stay tuned!