Finished Trellis

As I look back at my previous posts and remember what my grapes look like right now, it is crazy what 10 days will do. I just finished putting the last wire on the trellis and this job is finally DONE! Just in time also. I would have been in trouble if I had not put in the posts and wires when I did, because the vines have grown so fast in this hot weather that they would have started to break off or get damaged from their weight just being on the strings. So a note to all those out there that might be planning to start a vineyard (Sam!), get your trellis built during the first year and don't wait for the second year to do it. It could get away from you and put you behind a year.

Some of my vines are overlapping each other now, which means that each of them are over 6 feet long. So my goal for the year of getting cordons grown out, even after cutting them all the way back to the ground, has been accomplished. Not all of the plants will get to this point, but 4 Marquette's in a row are this big already. I have high hopes for others as well. I am thinking that I will get some good production next year from some of them, and the following year (4th) will be great! A couple of my new plants from 2010 are doing really good, so they will be right on schedule. But everything will be growing good roots so if I do not prune everything back so hard next spring, they should be on schedule also.

I just posted on my Facebook page that I love doing art. Growing a vineyard is art because the plants are trained in such a way that they are fulfilling what I have thought they should look like for 2 years now. My trellis is better than what I thought it would be like, the plants are doing better than I expected at this point, I get to play with them each day and train them in the way they should go, that they have to be art. My latest idea is to paint my own custom wine bottle label with acrylic paints so I do not have to resort to using pre-made labels. It will cost a lot more in the long run, but I think it will be much more satisfying. I can't wait to start on it, but I have a lot of other projects to finish first.

I was reading John 15 in the Bible where J-sus is talking about how He is the true vine and we are the branches. There is a lot of spiritual significance to growing a vineyard. I would like to do a whole study on it and write up an hour's worth of teaching on it for a Sunday School lesson someday, that would be a blast! It is interesting that out of the 66 books in the Bible, only 1 does NOT have something about either wine, grapes, or vineyards, etc. It was pretty important to Israel to have references to these in nearly the whole Bible. It must be important for us today as well. That will have to be what I research and study.