Grapes continued.

After the posts were laid, we laid out weedguard fabric in the hopes that we could use a simple post hole digger and cut right through the fabric every six feet to place a vine.  Good intentioned, yes.  Did it work, not at all. The fabric gave us too much of a fight and once we saw the root size of our vine babies we were done for.



So, we scratched that idea and used our handy plow that Dad had picked up at the local Grange Auction a few months back.  Instead, we plowed rows between our two set posts.



Then the grapes arrived in two deceitfully small cardboard boxes.  The deceit continued as we took a look at our handsomely packaged vines ::twenty-five to a bundle::



We unwrapped the vines by variety to avoid any confusion and placed them in this large tub of water::



Baby vines are supposed to soak anywhere from 2-12 hours prior to planting so as to soak up enough water to endure the planting process.  Speaking of planting process... here it is::



1. Place one vine in the trench.  2. Shovel dirt from either side of trench towards said vine.  3. Pat dirt down around said vine.  4. Use homemade six foot measure stick to measure from planted vine to the next.  Yes, planting one vine was a four man project, something our handy dandy vineyard plan failed to mention to us.  Feeling our deceit?

When we were approaching our last row of planting ::after about eighty man hours and four this woman hours, mind you:: a train ran by as if to whisper you're almost there. The hubs and I were stoked.  Yea, not that we don't prove our utter dork.e.ness daily, but we became members of the Illinois Railway Museum a few weekends back.  Be excited for those adventures ::sarcastic drip, drip, drip::.  Seriously though, we are ecstatic to have those tracks running through the back of the vineyard::



Here's the final look at the end of the day::



Next up, mulch!