July 2: Grapes are looking pretty shipshape, after (finally!) some sunshine. Most shoots are past the high wire already. Bloom began June 26, and 2 varieties out of 6 still haven't broken to flowers. It's late this year, but there's still time to make up the cumulative heat/sun deficit, if we're lucky.
That's thyme on the vineyard floor--some dozen varieties of it. Some of them are blooming purple and pink right now, which is pretty cool, but my favorite might be the (yellow and green) variegated lemon thyme--what a bouquet if you walk on it, or pick a twig and crush it beneath your nose! It's practically begging to have a bit picked and taken into the kitchen, to turn some food or other into a masterpiece.
The thyme replaces tall pink field clover, which was a dumb idea from the start but this city boy didn't think about how tall it grows and I was thinking its nitrogen-fixing would be nice plus it's good fodder for our bees. I tired of whacking it down, or letting it block airflow to the fruiting wire so much that the perennial Powdery Mildew reared its head. (I could/should have chosen ground-hugging lawn clover, but I'm still mad at it because it never yielded me a four-leaf clover as an impatient boy, despite hours of searching, and let's face it: There are too many white flowers in this world ;). I paid for my folly by having to pull out each plant of clover, stem by stem, and root by root, all along my seven rows, six-feet-wide. I can think of no better way to cement a lesson in a stubborn brain. If only our justice system could think up similar punishments for some of the lesser crimes . . . . Which reminds me of something I did as a father that I am very proud of: When a daughter kept slamming her bedroom door against repeated parental advice, I walked up and calmly and wordlessly removed it from its hinges and carried it away for a few days. You should have seen her incredulous face as she sat on her bed and watched me do that! (PS-she is now the most wonderful and successful person you could hope to meet. We should all be so lucky as to have achieved anger management at such a young age.)
Hoping for dry sun!
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