Grapes on Wednesday in the Garden

Albemarle Muscadine

It’s time to plant grapes in the VegHeadz garden.  From Peter Goren, who designed the new grape arbor and who along with Glenn Berman, has been working on it for many Wednesdays: “The grape arbor is almost complete and spring is here, so it's time to plant! Attached are five pictures of locally available muscadine grape varieties that we are considering.  We will be acquiring and planting four plants.”

The Albemarle is recommended for home gardens, so that might be good to try. And the Carlos has potential for making wine, so those two are interesting. Also suggested were several bunching varieties such as Blue Lake.  The problem is the potential in our area for diseases in varieties other than muscadine.  And RazzMatazz is a new variety out of North Carolina that checks a lot of boxes, but the grapes are tiny.  Follow to find out which are selected and how they fare. 

Details about the types of muscadines under consideration are included in the photos.  

Both UF/IFAS and FAMU have extensive information on growing grapes in north Florida.  https://hos.ifas.ufl.edu/grape/ and https://g.co/kgs/i3DMmS, FAMU Viticulture Center.

Also:  Information from UF/IFAS on growing bunch grapes in our area:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/17akEv4VyuBfPQUtcy-LMyauMnU9m5Gr4/view?usp=drivesdk and 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10pAMarmkCRv-_YLml8CsLqOvCMtC2wfb/view?usp=drivesdk

Cowart Muscadine

Southland Muscadine

Scuppernong Muscadine

Carlos Muscadine d

The VegHeadz are busy getting the garden ready for the annual open house on May 13, 2023,  and propagating plants for the plant sale on that day.  

From Peggy McDonald temporary coordinator:  “If you were not in the garden Wednesday, you missed a beautiful day. The cool breeze and temps in the low 70's made for a perfect workday.

It was a team effort of at least nine VegHeadz to stake, mulch and plant the 12 Giant Mammoth sunflowers on the East side. Thanks to all who helped. Only one bamboo trellis toppled onto Peter, but he was not hurt and this time he planted it deeper so it should stay upright.

The finished cardboard and mulch looks great around the bamboo!  

There are baby tomatoes growing in the C Beds. Great job Cathy and Nancy.

Buckwheat was planted by Jeannie in the swale of the blueberry patch. It will cover the ground, produce healthy soil, attract pollinators and other helpful bugs and discourage weeds.

Keith Post gave our climbing roses on the garden entrance arbor another spray of fungicide for black spot. They are really putting on a show right now.  I hope we have some blooms in May, we'll see.

Jeanne's Library seedlings and seeds are all labeled and growing nicely. 

We accomplished quite a bit but there is still more to do.
The grass is encroaching on our East border. If we could edge, pull weeds, lay cardboard and mulch between the row of Sunflowers, it would look like a well tended 🪴 .”

Mammoth Sunflowers planted

D Rotation beds looking lush
and beautiful

Sunflowers and Zinnias if I’m 
not mistaken. Great plants to
maximize insect help and 
reduce insect damage. 

Library seed beds.  They will soon provide 
inspiration to grow free seeds from
Leon County Library.  Available for spring 
and fall seasons.  

New blueberry patch. Buckwheat 
just planted as cover crop.  
Follow us to watch it
grow and bloom in just a few 
weeks.  

Rose Arbor. Peggy Martin Roses a/k/a Katrina
Rose, designated 2023 LSU Super Plant.
https://www.lsuagcenter.com/articles/page1677085112938

Newly weeded and mulched bamboo area.  Great job.  It was a jungle to tame and grows 
next to a large untended natural area. If we can keep the giant ragweed that grows in the surrounding area beaten back, we will have made real progress.  Thank you, Peggy, Mike,  and all who helped with this big job.  

Baby tomatoes already hanging
In the C Rotation beds.  They like
the cool spring weather.  Yay!