Late January Garden

Here we are at the very end of January. I am continuing the tasks of planing the next season's garden, and taking care of the nature that lives here. 

As always, I'd rather not go into the garden in the rain and the mud, but if I can be strong, get on my rain gear, and take a short daily tour of my garden, I find many simple things to do, without getting too muddy.

Agenda:

1. Support urban wildlife in winter

2. Garden plans

3. Prune the grape

1. Support urban wildlife in winter:

What kinds of wildlife do you have in your garden in the winter? Probably birds and insects, some small mammals, snakes and frogs. In winter you might not ever see anyone except birds and squirrels, because many animals slow down and hibernate underground in the winter to conserve energy. 

You can help them make it through the cold with a few helpful habits:

• Feed the birds high-energy foods like sunflowers and suet. Remember to clean your feeders: Damp weather paired with birds flocking to feeders increases the potential for diseases to spread, including salmonella. A good cleaning routine is twice a month.
• Feed squirrels when the ground freezes and they can't dig up nuts. To prevent a big mess on my porch, I put a squirrel dome over my porch feeder, and hang a special feeder in a tree just for squirrels, high enough so cats and dogs can't harass them. They love nuts and seeds, but no peanuts.
• Provide a bowl or pond of water and keep it clean. If it freezes, make a hole with a pan of hot water.
• Leave wildlife habitats (leaf piles, compost and brush piles, hedges, and old logs) alone until spring, because someone might be asleep there.
• Limit outdoor activities to reduce noise levels and prevent stress on animals, refraining from disturbing hibernating animals in sheltered spots.

2. Garden plans:

I am continuing the fun work of planning my garden. My tasks today are to:

1. Order seeds and plants: Look through my seeds to see what I need and make a comprehensive list, then place an order! Also, buy new native plants and shrubs.
2. Update my planting schedule: I need to determine the date to start each thing, and put it onto my planting spreadsheet, and my calendar. Hardiness zones are shifting, and first and last frost dates are less predictable than they used to be, but we are typically in USDA zone 8b, and our last frost date is April 27th.

3. Prune the Grape:

We inherited an old concord grape vine that was planted probably when the house was built. It has survived much abuse. It died entirely back one year, but has come back as strong as ever. We love this grape for it's sweet juice.

We use a haphazard trellis pruning system, with a large number of canes. We put in a very sturdy trellis two years ago to handle the weight, and trained two sections of trunk to a high head height, about 5½ feet tall. I chose two shoots on each trunk to be the arms or cordons - the permanent parts of the vine, running south. These are fanned out and loosely tied to the trellis (this is important because it's hard to remember which are the permanent vines otherwise!)

Now it's time to prune, before the new growth starts. When maintenance pruning, remember that grapes grow from the buds formed on the previous summer’s stems, so don’t remove all the stems or you won’t get any fruit. We "cane prune" because I think our grapes produce better that way...

To cane prune: 

1. Select four canes to be this year's fruiting canes, and 4 to be "renewal" canes. 
2. Cut new fruit canes back to 15-20 buds each (60-80 buds total).
3. Cut the other 4 renewal canes back to two-bud spurs. Mark these with tape. These "renewal spurs" will produce the fruiting canes for the following year and thus maintain fruiting close to the trunk. 
4. The following year, reverse the pruning by cutting the spurs, which will have grown into long stems, back to 15-20 buds to make a cane. Then prune the previous year’s canes back to two-bud spurs. Alternate the pruning on these spurs and canes each year.
5. Remove all other growth.