Name That (Grape) Disease

So I'm in my first real season of growing these grapes, and I swear that EVERYTHING I see I assume is something terrible and horrible that's happening to the grapes. Budbreak I thought was a fungal infection. When the grape flowers formed I thought those little grapes would never grow. Here's a few more specific conditions that I may or may not have diagnosed:

1. RED LEAVES. It sure seems like they have a simple case of Autumn - however I started seeing this in June-July! We had some early heat, and I'm still figuring out water, so I'm going to guess this is water stress, or possibly a mineral deficiency, and not a more serious disease I've read about.

2. BLACK SPLOTCHES ON CANES. See the black splotches on the vines themselves (in this first picture)? Looks like a splatter of black watercolor. I've been told this is a variety of things; the one I trust the most says it's a sign of powdery mildew (a.k.a. "PM"). County Ag department disagreed, however, so I kept doing preventative measures but nothing to eradicate.

3. THIN CLUSTERS. Clusters are supposed to be think & bunchy & all that stuff, but some of mine looked half dried off, thin & scraggly. I'm pretty sure this is a result of my 'tough love' watering plan (watering infrequently, but long, such that they develop nice big tap root down into the ground). I've later heard, and read, that this watering plan rarely works on our side of the hill. Sigh - back to more water. Let's hope for lots of rain next year!

4. SPIDER WEBS OR POWDERY MILDEW? After all of the things that *could* indicate PM (powdery mildew), the major one is a 'white powdery or dusty appearance'. So this definitely defines webby, but I never saw anything powdery to go with it. And I saw a spider in one of these. Treated for PM with Kaligreen (potassium bicarbonate, like baking soda but bound with potassium instead of sodium), which is all the rage among backyard grape growers in our area.

I need to keep reminding myself that these are plants and they're pretty good at growing & reproducing on their own. So I can't mess them up too much, right? Right?

Watching Grapes Grow

About a year ago, my husband and I found a very cute house, in the hills above Los Gatos. It was built back in the 1940's and has been added to continuously since (a room here, a deck there - you get the picture).

Adjacent to the house was a vineyard. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, which are pretty much only good for making wine.

We ended up buying the house, and then had a discussion on what to do with the vineyard.

We both really like wine - especially big red wines that go with a good steak. I was in 4-H growing up, so know something about agriculture. Bruce grew up near vineyards in Livermore, so he had seen all the work involved in keeping vineyards running.

So, we figured why not - le'ts keep on going with growing grapes and making our own wine.

Well the first year, 2006, was spent mostly fighting deer. There is a 8' fence all the way around the vineyard, but the deer were still able to jump in and eat the tasty goodness inside. We patched the fence and they still got in. We added two feet to the height of the fence and they STILL got in. Long story short, we had a very small harvest, because in the end one smart, crafty, hungry deer was still getting in there to eat the vines (and grapes).

This year, 2007, we won! I think a big part of it has to do with a neighborhood dog actually. The grapes grew as they should. Here's the time-lapse view over the course of about 4 months.

Understand that the grapes don't just magically grow this way by themselves - I'm out there about 4 hrs/week - pruning, training, weeding, managing cover crop, and spraying the vines. It's good exercise, and mostly mellow and a nice break from the hours I spent in front of a computer at work.

I realize that I need to start archiving some of what I'm experiencing and learning. What better way than to start an online diary! (c'mon, you know that's all most blogs really are). But you're welcome to follow along as I sporadically update with some the happenings here in our grape patch!