Taming the Beast!

Its been 2 weeks since we've updated- Yikes!  We've been busy with Valentine's Day, Craig's 25th birthday, planting more in the garden and digging out the grape vine!  I'll have to add my pictures later.

In the garden we now have almost all of our seeds planted!  We still need to get ready for planting corn, pumpkins, watermelons, and a few more potatoes, but my tomato plants and basil are looking happy to be in the sunshine.  Athena has been adventuring a little outside this week, and she absolutely loves rolling in the dirt in the garden path- I knew she would! 

Today, we tamed the beast also known as our grape vine!  It was a lot more work than we expected...but the project is turning out better than expected, too!  Doug was here to help, so the 3 of us put in 4 hours of work trimming back weeds and brambles, cutting down small trees, and digging up the roots.  Finally, our vine was free- and its HUGE!  We guess that the vine must be somewhere around 100-150 years old.  It has vines that are thicker than my arm.  We've asked the landlord to tell us more about it, so hopefully we will get some of its history soon. 

After exposing the actual vine itself, we decided to re-do the posts and arbor that used to hold the vines up.  We set 4 posts and attached the metal rods to the top of the posts.  Tomorrow we will finish putting the rods up, paint the arbor to give it a fresh look, and then finally put the vines back over the arbor so it can grow and look beautiful!

Depending on how many grapes it produces, I'm going to get a winemaking kit and learn to make wine for our household and friends.  I know a lot about Muscadine wine and winemaking on the commercial scale, but I actually know nothing about home wine making- I guess this fall we will start the experiment and see how it goes.  I've already decided that I'll label our wine with a picture of the farmhouse and store it in the wonderful wine cooler Craig bought for me when we started dating.  I'll post pictures of the grape vine process and the finished arbor tomorrow!  Until then- peace, love, and happy gardening :)