What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

I will bet that they Are still there. They look like the deadest thing on the property in the winter, but they might be the hardiest.
I understand that Illinois produces sweet wines, but I intend to try some winemaking with them anyway.

if you want concord grape wine go for some welches grape juice and throw in a shot or two of everclear. it's not really worth much else IMO. i'm not a huge wine person anyways. to me concords are for making juice and jam with and for fresh eating. i love 'em fresh off the vine.

 

[digitS']

Fifty years ago, I experimented with wine making use Welch's. It worked really well! Greatly encouraged, I wanted to make wine from what I was growing and I didn't have grapes.

The neighbor had pear trees, I had learned about pear wine (I thought ). We made pear wine - terrible! I went on (& off) to try other things. I did have some success with hard apple cider but I quickly turned it around to failure .

Involved Dad beginning with his 70th birthday. Bought him a beer making kit. We made good and so-so batches of beer. Bought him a Concord-type grape vine (King of the North). He wanted it near his south fence and it climbed into the neighbor's yard. He was embarrassed and took it out completely .

Anyway, Dad's and my best beer and best wine used golden raisins. Shoulda stayed with grapes from the get-go and avoided all the disappointments. However, I still have never owned a grape vine - nor really have room for one. Besides, I don't seem to have the proper kultur to make wine, sauerkraut, pickles, or what-have-you on my own. The neighbor at the big veggie garden has lots of Concord grapes but ... that's a Mormon family .

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

These are OLD grapevines. Often there are two seeds in each grape, so it's not the popular thing.

 

[baymule]

Take cuttings and root them in willow water.

Cut the tips of willow branches, about a foot long. Strip off the leaves, snip into half inch pieces, cover with water. Soak 3 days. This is your rooting hormone. Start the cuttings in the willow water, change every 3 days. After rootlets appear, plant in soil (in a pot) and water with willow water. When established, plant them in the garden!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Got back from vaca only to find that bur cucumber had taken over part of my garden. I filled up the back of a Polaris and will burn it tomorrow. Truly amazing how much space one plant can take.

Which is what I have been thinking this year when I look at my garden and how I am just not allowing enough room for each plant.

 

[Zeedman]

Take cuttings and root them in willow water.

Cut the tips of willow branches, about a foot long. Strip off the leaves, snip into half inch pieces, cover with water. Soak 3 days. This is your rooting hormone. Start the cuttings in the willow water, change every 3 days. After rootlets appear, plant in soil (in a pot) and water with willow water. When established, plant them in the garden!

Interesting. Plenty of wild willow around my area, so should be easy to try. You might laugh, but I want to create clones of the male box elder in my front yard, to transplant into my tree line. I lost all of my American elms to Dutch elm disease, and the emerald ash borer is threatening to wipe out my beautiful stand of ash as well. When that happens, I at least want some box elders to take over & preserve the privacy provided by the tree line.

Bonus points if I can clone the highly productive mulberry in my daughter's yard, there are already several male trees nearby to provide pollen.

 

[Nyboy]

Zeedman nice to see someone realize what a useful tree the mulberry is

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

 

[Zeedman]

Zeedman nice to see someone realize what a useful tree the mulberry is

I also realize how invasive - and extensive! - the mulberry root system can be.

My property is L-shaped, widening 100' from the street. There is a large male mulberry at the corner of the L... 100' from the street, and about 75' from my house. Roots from that tree run under one of my gardens (I till a few up each year), and against my foundation, where for many years it sent up shoots. When they were excavating to build a house next door, the bright yellow roots from that same mulberry were highly visible - running all the way to the culvert!

The young trees I intend to plant will be located near the back of my property, and will take years to become large enough to be a problem. By that time, barring some miraculous method of life extension, they will be someone else's problem.

 

[catjac1975]

This represents a few weeks of on again off again work. Most of which were 90 plus degrees and high humidity. Dug and potted daylilies for next year farmers markets. Tilled, limed. and applied black gold to this bed for renewal. My new daylily seedlings will go in this bed for further evaluation and growth. It just started raining so I feel frustrated that I had to quit early when I finally have all the prep done. 4 straight days of cool weather but, the heat is promised to return.