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Retirement is comin'! Then we can live where ever we want. I'll likely stay here, hoping each year I can spend a few of the winter months in California.

I guess you'll be heading for Washington State.
 
Would love to but oldest daughter out in LA is looking more and more like wedding bells and kids in the next few years. SWMBO is wanting to stay close....
Perhaps rrawhide and I will become grape growing neighbors some day!
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that would be great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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the blends that we could come up with would be winnners I am sure


how about ibglowin oaky white? the special white made from the scrapings of unknow grapes


rrawhide
 
Hmmmm. What about moving from Los Alamos, NM to Los Alamos, CA! About the same size town and only 130 miles from Hollywood, CA. !
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Winters are great here! Short compared to Montana for sure! Lots of SUN. A few snow storms up here in the northern mountains. Great skiing. With the high altitude the sun feels so much warmer so it can be pretty chilly outside but the sun will keep you feeling toasty. Spring is my least favorite season for sure!
 
Mother nature continued to just mess with me the last few days. Friday AM at 2:30 the freeze alarm went off out of the blue. Got up, looked at the clock and it was 34. Plenty of time to drop further.......

Threw on some clothes and dragged pot after pot of geraniums, basil, dahlia's into the winery. Had planted some already in big heavy pots so covered them with a heavy quilt. Went back to bed, got up at 6:30AM and looked at the temp, it was 40.......... Like I said just messing with me for sure this Spring.

Saturday morning was 36 degrees for the low, today 42.This has been the coolest May on record so far and its not over. Vines are for the most part budded out and budding back out after the hard freeze 3 weeks ago.

On a brighter note the winery is staying nice and cool all on its own with out the need for any AC!

Bought Tomatoes for the garden yesterday come on warmer weather!
 
In East Texas the low is 70 with the high of 90.


Sure would be nice to be in the Mountains of New Mexico next month when it will be over 100 here!!!
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Its been a while since I have posted any pics. We suffered through the worst fire in the history of New Mexico in June. The monsoons were pretty much a no show the whole month of July but they arrived towards the end and are here big time the whole month of August. I feel like I am living back in Houston for goodness sakes its so humid outside but the grass and garden are loving it as you can see.

The vines have come back pretty solid after the coldest winter on record as well as a killing freeze on April 21. I guess these guys are going to make it if they can make it through that heck of a first year!

Have just over 30 vines total of Marquette, Corot Noir and Noiret. The Corot Noir and Noiret and doing the best with the Marquette some are doing well and others not so vigorous at the moment.

A few low clusters escaped my eye sight somehow and managed to bloom without me seeing them so I let them go just to see how they would ripen and timeframe. Looks like they are only a few weeks out from fully ripening.

Cant wait for next year!

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Looking great Mike. Where's the Dahlia's? I love those flowers but the moles kept eating them when I planted them. Plus, I hate having to have to dig the tubers up every fall. Around here they would freeze in the winter.
 
Those are out front and are just now starting to grow like weeds. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have a few more in bloom and will try to take some pics. I don't know if I told anybody about my dahlia "experiment" this past winter. I decided to try and see if I could winter them in the ground. I bought a large tarp and cut it to fit, laid it on top, then waited for the wind to bring down the pine needles in the fall from my two large ponderosa pines I have in the front yard. I got enough pine needles to have a good 6-8 inch blanket on top of the tarp. I think it would have worked had we not had the 2-3 days of -21 degree cold temps in February. Normally we have 0 to -5 maybe a few times but nothing like what we experienced. The end result was one tuber out of like 40 survived so had to start over with what ever I could find from Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Farmers Market........

runningwolf said:
Looking great Mike. Where's the Dahlia's? I love those flowers but the moles kept eating them when I planted them. Plus, I hate having to have to dig the tubers up every fall. Around here they would freeze in the winter.
 
I think they are doing quite well all things considered. Definitely a labor of love!
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appleman said:
The children are looking great Mike. Keep up the great care for my little babies.
 
Mike so you also have to pull the tubers in. Thats just more then I want to do every year and then you have to tag each one as to what it is. We got ours from grower on the internet and had picked colors and sizes based on where we were going to put them. If you didn't tag them you would never know the next year as you know. Beautiful flowers though.
 
Dan,

Who do you order from online? I used to use a place named Connell's up in Seattle but they closed up shop after about 30 years and I have yet to find a place with good high quality tubers AND service in the US. Found a great place in Canada but not going to mess with the import fee's etc....

I usually dig in the fall each year, put the tubers in a plastic bag (the soil must be dry or mold will set in) and then I fill up the bag with cedar shavings. I put these in the garage in an old laundry basket and cover with old blankets and quilts to keep them from freezing in the deep of winter as the garage will get into the upper teens at times.

Even with all that work I still lose 30-40% of the tubers sometimes to mold or dry rot.

Another labor of love but its rewarding to have the neighbors walk by and marvel at them in August plus you have no shortage of cut flowers in August and September!
 
Is this normal? Its almost the end of August and I walked out to the garden to check on the vines and spotted this unusual sight on one of them.......

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This was not there last week, just formed over the last few days. Is it normal for a vine to do this in late Summer?
 
Absolutely normal. That is a summer lateral shoot that formed after the rains came and regrowth started. Prune off the clusters to keep the vigor in the vine.
 
WOW! Ask a question and you get an immediate answer from an expert! What a great forum this is! I am always impressed by Appleman's advice.
 

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