Vineyards in Iowa

John and I went out earlish - for me anyway - this morning to take photos of a vineyard in progress.  Vineyards used to be a mainstay here in Iowa, just like potatoes and mangel beets, but alas sometime in the 60's they went the way of the dodo bird.  Ten years ago, however, the vineyard made a comeback here!  The mark they leave upon the prairiescape is unique, in comparison to corn and soy beans, and thusly my Prairie Harvest series will be including vineyards as part of the imagery!

New Colors

Cotton Candy Pink and Grape Silk Cocoons

Aphids

Aphids - they are everywhere and they are devouring everything!!! I guess it's time to pull out the big poisons - Sevin - and kill everything off! I truly hate to do this but we have them so bad that they are actually eating the leaves on our oak trees!!! I've never seen an aphid on an oak tree before but I guess anything IS possible.

My grape vine is all but dead and I'm trying to keep a 150 year old english rose root stock alive!

What is it???

Click on the photo to see the bugs better~!

Some thing is eating my grapes and my roses, on the roses there's little whitish looking critters that I think will have to be dealth with tomorrow the question is what are the critters?

New Garden Space

South looking north, about 45 feet, maybe more, for veggies, herbs, and flowers.

I grew rather tired of the rabbits destroying my grapevines, like the local thief wasn't bad enough, so the grape arbor is now inside of the fenced area.

The fence runs along the sidewalk which will soon have thyme and other herbs growing to fill in the space.

Above - looking north towards the garden shed. Below - looking south towards the front porch and the street.

We enlarged the east garden combining it with the south garden beside the front porch. Dh will build a raised bed, octagon shaped, to go around the crab apple tree under which we will plant currants and goose berries.

No more fence hopping for me, John's also building a gate for the garden as well. One of the blessings of no longer having a large dog means I don't have to have a large yard for the large dog and it also means less mowing!!! Now to finish planning the guilds to go around the trees .

What is it???

I've since found out that this is a japanese beetle and they can eat a lot of plants, so I will make tobacco tea, to spray on my plants, in the morning after it's done raining here.

I found this bug munching merrily away on my grape vines I'm thinking i'll have to get some bug repellent to deter their munching.

Grape Arbor

John got it built finally! Orignally it was supposed to have reclaimed columns and a brick patio but at the last moment we decided to put the vegetable garden back in this year. Next year I'll work on container gardening.