Grape preparations

So a little history about this grape vine. Although it now looks like this:

December 30, 2015

The early days:

I purchased it from Home Depot three, maybe even four, years ago. It started out as a 2 year old (according to the package) woody stalk, no more than three feet tall including the small pot it came with. I moved it into a larger pot, at about 10 or 15 gallons, using potting soil from the UH greenhouse. It proceeded to grow and under varying degrees of care until I graduated in May 2015. 

The uprooting:

By then, the pot had been moved out of doors for about a season and roots had plummeted out of the pot and into the earth around it. I wanted to bring the grape home with me since we were moving into an apartment where we would have a patio (partially pictured in the photo above). So I dug out a circle around the pot, adding about 2ft to the diameter of the root system I would claim. I did have to cut some of the roots, even the one I suspected to be the main tap root. But, I think under the circumstances I did an ok job. I then immediately went to Home Depot and purchased potting soil and the pot pictured above. I would say that's about a 20-30 gallon pot, although it is plastic. I may transfer the plant/soil to a new ceramic pot in March. (I have many many such plans "for the Spring.")

The dilemma:

Should I cut it back? How much? I know grapes require pruning. But exactly how much? and when should I do it? Did I already miss the window by allowing so much woody growth?

And so today I set out to do an extensive internet search.

According to the internet:

• "...15 to 20 gallons of potting mix. ... pots that are at least 24 inches wide and 16 inches deep ..." (Site #1)
• "Grape vines appreciate having full-sun... By late winter, after the big frost but a bit before it starts growing again, it is time to the first big pruning. ... make a diagonal cut away of the bud, just a little over the [bud] ... The goal here is to trim your plant so only the two lower healthy buds remain." (Site #2)
• This website also continues on with a good explanation about a space-saving training technique, but I will leave that for another time.
• "In the first winter, ...keep the strongest stem. ... [Second winter]...a straight trunk and a set of side branches. ... leaving about 10-15 buds in each arm during the winter of the third year." (Site #3)
• "Umbrella Kniffen training method ... select the strongest cane...remove the rest. Cut the cane back so that there are only two or three buds left. New shoots will emerge from these buds. ... shoots reach 6 to 10 inches in length, select the best one and remove the others." (Site #4)
• Wall of text I couldn't bring myself to read: Site #5
• "remove the majority of wood produced the previous season – until about 90 percent is pruned off... from January through the first of March, when the grapes are dormant. ... Grapes are produced from buds that will grow into shoots on one-year old canes. [Canes are] thicker than a pencil in width and as close to the trunk as possible (when cane pruned)." (Site #6)
• There are two types of grape pruning—cane pruning and spur pruning. Mature plants should be pruned yearly to remove all growth except new one-year-old fruiting canes and renewal spurs.
• To cane prune, select two to four new fruiting canes per vine. ...leave about 15 buds per cane. ...leave about 30 buds per plant. ... Leave a one-or two-bud spur cane near the fruiting cane with one or two buds each. These "renewal spurs" will produce the fruiting canes for the following year and thus maintain fruiting close to the trunk. All other cane growth should be pruned off.
• To spur prune, prune along main canes to leave two- to three- bud spurs, each four to six inches apart. Leave no more than 20 to 80 buds per plant, depending on the type of grape. Remove all other one-year-old wood.
• "The key to pruning grapes is understanding their fruiting habit. Grapes produce the most fruit on shoots growing off of one-year-old canes. If you have too many old canes (from no pruning), then you’ll get fewer grapes. If you prune back your vines completely each year, then you get lots of new growth, but again, few grapes." (Site #7)

So, I think I still have much to learn. I wish I could find more photos.

But the take home lesson today is: Prune heavily between February and March, and give some serious thought to my grape-shape-plan before I make my final cuts... Also, move it into a sunnier place, haha.

Also, I should get a fan for air circulation.

Also, one more site before I go: http://www.gardenguides.com/86085-plant-grapes-texas.html

Broccoli update, and new plant plans

Ok so the broccoli has gotten very big. Tape measure time!

November 1st, 2015

December 8th, 2015

December 29th, 2015

Here are the close-ups of two of the smallest and largest ones next to a tape measure.
About 7" and 11" tall, respectively.
In the overview photo you can see they are 2 - 3 times bigger than when we planted them.

Review of what the tag for the broccoli says:
So I've got a Packman Hybrid type of Broccoli from Bonnie Plants that I got from Home Depot. According to the tag, the requirements are:
+ Light: Full sun, 6+ hrs daily
+ Spacing: 18" apart
+ Planting depth: container deep
+ Maturity: 45-55 days after planting
+ Feed regularly for best results / www.bonnieplants.com

Admittedly, it probably gets less than the full 6 hours of sun a day in that spot. The view in all of these photos is pointed at the south wall, and the plot is essentially closed in by walls on three sides. This leaves blocks a lot of the critical east/west sunlight it would ideally get.
They are also spaced closer than 18" apart, which means I need to be more careful about keeping each of them healthy. One diseased plant could spell the end for the whole "crop." I have noticed some yellowing of leaves on handful of the plants. You can see examples of this in the 7" measuring tape photo above.
I haven't been feeding them regularly, but I did put in fresh soil when they were planted. 

When I think I should be seeing broccoli buds:

So it's been 30+29 days = 59 days. This brings me to the question: what does Bonnie Plants mean by maturity? I thought it would be til harvest, but unless my sun-deprived plants are severed stunted, I don't think that's the case.
After reading Bonnie's broccoli page, I think I should try liquid feeding them some nitrogen. I'd love to add more earthworms, too, so maybe a quick trip to the bait section of Academy is in order.
So I'll start feeding them and hope to see buds in the next month at least.

My best friend's sister got us ALL THESE COOL SEEDS
and I am going to plant ALL of them! :D

Ok, well... There's a LOT of them. So maybe not all?? We'll see if I have to pick and choose which are the coolest and tastiest to actually grow this year.

 

In the psychedelic salad:
1. Red Lettuce
2. Golden beet seeds
3. Fiesta blend radishes
4. Round lemon cucumbers (DEFINITELY these!)
5. Red globe onions.

Ok so that's not a crazy number of species, so maybe I can do this.
But if I did it in the ground, it would probably take all of the garden space (maybe even more?) and leave none for the strawberries that I know I want. I wonder if doing a half of each seed packet...? Each seed packet comes with 20 seeds. Maybe a fourth of each seed packet then?
5 plants * 5 species * 12" apart = 5ft x 5ft, right? Hmmm... Need to do some more measuring.

But wait, there's more!

 

Omg, there's so many species in this one.
Chives, cilantro, curly parsley, dill, genovese basil (what?! so delish), mint, and thai basil.
That's SEVEN in total.
I am definitely gonna look into these AeroGarden things. I wonder if I could do them in the house without creating bugs that would bother my best friend...

Strawberries, strawberries everywhere.
We are also doing at least FIVE strawberry plants, I've decided. Maybe they will be container, maybe not. I must stew on this issue...

Side update on the other outdoor plants:

Rose needs to be separated, coleus trimmed, and grape pruned.

Grape! Soon to be the highlight of an upcoming blog post.

 More coming soon...

Travel post

I'm writing this from the Chicago airport, so there won't be any relatable photos.

But some un relatable. :)

Out of the garden plants that we talked about last post, the broccoli are showing signs of being firmly rooted and happy. Leaves are perked up and look thick. I am severely miffed by the pest bites showing in the foliage. The same thing getting into the ivy is eating slowly at the broccoli leaves. I think it's snails. What's a good home remedy for keeping snails off of stuff?

The brussell sprouts, however, are not doing so well. They are also getting munched on, and are a little wilt y almost. This might have to do with their position. They both have the same recommended light requirements, but sprouts may be more sensitive to lack of light. Or maybe it's the dampness. Or something about the soil... I wanted to have a multi culture, but maybe I cut my losses and just try to focus on broccoli for our first fall growing season.

Then of course there's the plans for the larger, beautiful, unexpected planting area that I got through the hard work of my best friend. 

Also, hooray for air planes with guest power outlets!

</post cut short 'cause I never finished it, LAWL>

Planted and pretty

Planted and pretty

Note: Walking barefoot on concrete will tear up the soles of your feet, even if you don't feel it until the next day!
Lots of exclamation points in this post, because I feel like things are moving forward. Happy belated Halloween. You may also notice that this post is only garden related. For now I am leaving the diet and exercise to naturally evolve. I  just want to focus on the garden.

Garden:

I took these photos JUST NOW!! We've had another rainy weekend here but it's let up this morning which allowed us to take some extra steps in getting things growing!

 Extra depth of dirt.

 New garden addition since the last post! Extra space, with super-pro board cutting skills activated.

 These little guys have been waiting for their new home!

 I planted all 9 seedling of broccoli.

 6+ hours of sun is specified... We'll see if we can achieve that. The growing area is fenced on three sides, with the open side being North facing.

 Brussels sprouts I don't like to eat as much as broccoli and since I ran out of room in the space, I only plated three seedlings.

 Brussels sprouts called for an even wider spacing than the broccoli. This also meant I had less space to plant them.

The finished group of plantings! The three in the top/left of the photo are the brussels sprouts. Everyone else is broccoli.

Summary

Updates to come on growth, plans for the new area pictured above, and how the rest of the pots are doing.

Nice weekend, bird troubles, therapeutic gardening

So I've been taking it easy this weekend. I had two cheat days, which were also rest days. I ate what I felt like eating, but tried to limit the overall calorie intake by eating less often and smaller portions. Sunday today was solid in the food department. I also didn't exercise Friday or Saturday, but today our best friend bike ride was longer than usual. And I think we're ready to start adding length. My muscles have continued to be tight because I have continued to neglect stretching them.

A big event in my life happened yesterday, and I'm just thankful everything has turned out the way it has so far.

My pet bird of 12 years became very ill and had to be rushed to the animal hospital.

Edit: I drafted this post on Monday August 12th and never published it until I noticed it was still in draft mode.

Return of the blog?

Return of the blog?

So I had a pretty massive interruption in my life, due to my pet bird getting sick. I got to spend time with her for another week while I kept her and cared for her at my house. I'm grateful for that, because at the end of the week, she had more complications and passed, in spite of the excellent care by the vets and vet techs at Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists. Seriously, their avian group is amazing, and their facilities feel like a real-person-hospital.
So I've fallen off of just about all the band wagons.
However, my best friend and I (ok, mostly him) have made some significant strides in the garden! So that's what I'll focus on today.

Note: It's so RAINNYYYY outside. It's very nice to have the little porch/patio where I can sit and sip tea and listen to the rain in the night as it pours on. I'm sorry we had to have a massively destructive Cat 5 Hurricane Patricia to get it, but I'll take what little victories the world has to offer.

Garden:

I took these photos of the garden a couple days ago. I also have a photo of the woodsaw my best friend used to cut the planks. Look how shiny the garden looks! The rain tonight is settling in the soil and we wanted to see how the drainage would work since it is mostly clay underneath the soil we purchased and laid out. I am using MiracleGro's "Organic" series raised-garden bed soil type. One bag is laid out in the photo and is in the little garden now. I've got two more in the back of my truck. I have broccoli and brussel sprout seedlings ready to go in the morning. I'm hoping the slow steady rain we've had will bring a little extra life to the whole plant community here since I've been told that rainwater is especially good for plants.

The right tools for the job.

The (almost) finished product. Very pleased with the way it looks.

This is actually a photo of one of the grubs I dug up while removing roots/topsoil etc from the garden space. It's a little bigger than a 4x4foot area and I only found a handful of grubs. If you see these in your garden, they are the larval stage of beetles, and they grow bigger and turn into beetles by eating various plant roots. Unless you have a heavy infestation (normally 5-6 per sq foot) they aren't too harmful. However, they are definitely NOT beneficial! Whatever aeration they provide is offset by their taste for tasty delicate roots.

Yoga/Exercise: 

No yoga to speak of. Very little exercise. What I have been getting is with my best friend, so I'm very thankful for our bikes and the roads we have nearby to ride them on.
Tomorrow for sure I will have a photo for this. That is my goal for tomorrow.

Diet:

Today I've had:

• IsaLeanPro shake with strawberries
• Spaghetti squash (1.5 halves) with spaghetti sauce
• cookies for bfast
• two 8oz glasses of milk 
• Two glasses of tea
• A whole box of Petit Ecolier cookies

I don't want to particularly talk too much about diet today. I've been candy binging at work, and basically eating whatever I feel like at home. Still, my eating habits include a much healthier range of "what I feel like eating." There was a time when I never could have fathomed eating spaghetti squash.

Summary

Can't wait to plant in the garden tomorrow!

Third post, third day

How am I doing so far?

Be present. Be consistent. As my best friend pointed out today, this is officially two weeks of consistent bike riding. So that's awesome! For me, it's unprecedented. But hopefully I'll be breaking a lot of personal records in the coming months. (Yeah, that's right I said it: months. I'm in this for the long haul.)
As far as being present, I did some more chores when I got home today instead of diving straight into Netflix and Imgur. Buuuut I did watch a fifteen minute animated short after I *did* make it to Imgur. Other than that, though, I mostly haven't had time to not be present. Between work being busy and working out afterwards, I'm putting demands on myself. Which I am ok with. To be honest, there is more work I could have done today.

Garden:

I took the photos of my plants today. They show you all of the plants I am currently tending... Except now I notice I didn't get one of the little rose. I will handle that tomorrow. I also tried to take up-close details of what I think are the symptoms the plant is showing.


The grape is pretty straight forward - bugs everywhere. The basil is good except for a few spots and needing to be repotted. The coleus is also mostly good for a few minutes. These all got sprayed with the Off! Bug stuff I got. 

Yoga/Exercise: 

As I mentioned before: I SWAM YESTERDAY. For realsies. And I did a good job. And I want to keep doing it.
Today, we went on another best friend bike ride.

And I got my fitbit today! And I set up my account. I'm actually really excited to get in touch with other people I know who have them (I'm sure there are at least two) and do a bit of competition. Friendly-like, of course. But I'm interested in comparing where I am to other people, in addition to comparing to where I was before.
Still no yoga yet... But the night is young, we shall see. I can definitely feel my muscles tightening over time with the lack of yoga and/or a stretch routine after workouts.

Diet:

Today I've had:
No ionix
Strawberry shake
Two donuts
Cheesburger w avocado/mushroom
French Fries
Protein whey drink
IsaLean choco shake

Today was my second day with: NO CANDY. I've decided that candy consumption is only acceptable on Halloween! So I can't wait for that. We'll see which holiday I decide is also acceptable as the months wear on...

Summary

I did better at photos this time!

Second day

This post will get updated after I get home, but I've got a long day ahead of me so I wanted to start it off with a thought before I get into full blast:
I think I need to be more present in my life.

I say this because I had a clear list of goals yesterday, and I was happy to do all of them. Yet, "tomorrow" is shining on outside, and most of my goals still lay unattended.
I didn't do my yoga, or read about my plant problems, or mix the pesticides. And I had two tacos instead of a shake.
To be fair, we did go on our best friend bike ride, and I made dinner. After making dinner: shouldn't I get to eat some of it?

I think I need to be more present and stop watching so many videos. Netflix/YouTube, I am not going to watch you for 7 days. Starting now. No videos on FB, or twitter, or anything.
Mantra: Be Present.

Back in a bit...

10/7

I swam yesterday!! I SWAM

 yesterday!!

Oh my god It was amazing! I did a pretty good job according to my coach.

Yes, I am writing this post a day late, and no I didn't get any real gardening or yoga done,.... But I SWAM YESTERDAY.

Like, a lot of layoffs. But mostly I was focusing on foo item and my god do my arms hurt today.

I need to focus on rolling my body instead of turning my neck because I think that was my limiting factor yesterday.

That was soooooo awesome.

Here's to an even better today! See you next post!

First post! ...what am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

The course of events that led up to me starting this garden blog:

1. Listening to my new "The Happiness Project" audiobook, wherein she suggests writing a blog and how doing that one thing every day about something she was passionate about (in the author's case, her happiness project)
2. Remembering how easy and happy I was to write the one blog post I actually involved myself in with the USIP project
3. Trying to decide what I was most happy about (hint: I thought and still think it is fitness and self improvement)
4. Starting a blog for what I wanted to call "My Xena Project" where I wanted to strive and compare myself to the TV Greek character
5. Deciding I wasn't ready to put myself out there that much
6. Deciding it would be easier to blog about something concrete like my plants that would involve photos any way
7. Renaming and re-purposing the blog
8. Then RE-REnaming to be my garden/yoga/exercise/food blog. I'll have a section for each.

I don't have a complete form for how I want these posts to come out, but I know that I want to do something daily. So I think a daily check up, focusing on new details each day.

Garden:

Right now I've got six plants:

1. Golden pothos (white pot "Pathos") 
2. Golden pothos (brown pot "Ethos")
3. Red headed Coleus
4. Grape vine
5. Mini yellow roses
6. Basil plants

I want to focus first of all on the issues I have with my current plants. I want to get these poor plants in good healthy shape before I expand any more, or begin on a garden plot in our little home.
Namely: the diseases on Pathos and Ethos, and the bugs on the grape vine.
I plan to mix and spray the grape vine today.
I plan to go to Home Depot soon and get an antibacterial AND antifungal spray.

Yoga/Exercise: 

Planning to go on a best friend bike ride! We currently ride about 6 miles. From the north of Newcastle all the way to the South end. If we can do this for another week, then I will probably have us extend it some way. Maybe down the end of Braeswood?

Tomorrow will be swimming for exercise. My first meeting of the Central Swim Club! I think it's a chapter of the US Masters swim... Either way, I'm excited to go. It will be right after my volunteering at that Middle School.

Tonight I want to do five sun salutations before bed, and throw in some spontaneous restorative poses.

Diet:

Today I've had:
No ionix
Strawberry shake
Crunch bar fun size
BK apple salad
Chicken fries
Reese's PB pumpkin
Canned pears
Canned mandarin oranges

I color coded the list for green good, orange caution, red "I know I shouldn't have"
I plan to do the pre-work out stuff before the bike, the post, and only a dinner shake if I feel hungry at the evening. Going to try to keep it down.

I am currently going through the Isagenix program for at least a month. I haven't bought fully into it, but I like the energy so far, and it's a well defined plan, so I can get behind that.
This past weekend was not a great weeked in dietary discipline. McDonald's for lunch, hotdogs and hamburgers for dinner, and s'mores galore. Whole box of oreos downed over two days.

What's most curious to me about my "indulgent eating" is that it never feels very indulgent. I'm not normally happy afterwards. I don't normally get a noticeable spike of happiness while I'm eating them. I don't even feel like I'm treating myself. I do at the beginning; I anticipate how great it will taste and feel to let myself have the thing that is not good for me.

Summary

This seems like a good start. I am a little worried that I will focus more on logging and writing then I do on the actual doing. But, we'll see.
Oh: I also want a photo of something for each section.