Grapes Galore

My grapevine, planted as a cutting 3 years ago, has loads of tiny grape flower bunches on it. Some laterals have 3 bunches! Last week I tied all the laterals in to the trellis, but I'll now need to go out and prune each one back. It seems a bit harsh, but Hessayon says with a young vine to limit bunches to 1 per lateral, so I'll have to bite the bullet. The vine has 2 main rods growing horizontally about 9 inches from the ground. Last year I retained some of the vertical grow, and its from these that the fruiting shoots are growing. It covers a 6ft square heavy duty trellis placed in front of my greenhouse, the idea being natural shade in the summer when it's needed, and in the winter the light gets in because there are no leaves on the vine. The only problem is that I have trouble reaching the top, as I'm only 4ft 11! The wooden step stool from Ikea comes into use in the garden as well as the kitchen :) The grape is Himrod, a seedless white, which ripens outside about the end of Sept. I bought the parent around 18 years ago, and it has moved with me, in the guise of cuttings, ever since. The original was planted in a 12 by 8 greenhouse, and we used to get loads of grapes. Hopefully we will be more settled now, and this one can get really established.

Its cloudy today, so hopefully we might get a useful amount of rain to fill the water butts. The yacon could also do with going into the garden, Dans might do that for me later when he gets back from school. I'm feeling much frailer than I thought I would, but I suppose if the standard time off for the procedure I underwent is a week, and lots of people need more time, I can't complain yet. I haven't even felt like going out and doing anything in the garden, which is a measure of how yucky I feel!