New to planting, Rio Grande Valley Texas

[joshuamurphy75]

I have been gardening for about 6 years with a focus on fruit trees and annual vegetables. This is only my second time dealing with grapes. My soil is very shallow top soil, with heavy alkaline clay about a foot down. I am at about sea level with a very low water table, in growing zone 9b. Some hibiscus did experience root rot a couple years back on the opposite side of the yard. The land is humid and windy but there is little rain.

The east side of the property has steel fence with a brick base extending about 2 to 3 feet up. I tilled in the ground near the fence and planted some green manures. I also started to install trellis posts about 2 feet from the fence to install high tensile wire for training. I am thinking of using a VSP method of pruning where my horizontal cordons will be trained to a wire at the hight of the top of the bricks.

I purchased 9 varieties of grapes for this experiment. I doubt I will ever make wine, but I decided to buy a few wine grapes so I could experiment with the vines.

Wine Grapes:
Petite Sirah
Sangiovese
Malbec
Tempranillo

Table Grapes:
Mars Seedless
Flame Seedless
Concord
Thompson Seedless
Monukka Seedless

I have very poor drainage where I want to plant and would like to build up the elevation of the soil before planting. I have considered using pure compost, but I have read that grapes seem to produce a better tasting product when the vines struggle a bit. Any suggestions?

 

[joshuamurphy75]

Updated soil info from USDA Web Soil Survey

I was looking at the USDA's web soil survey information for a little more information about my land. I understand that this may not be as accurate as getting soil samples for my yard, but hopefully good enough for you to know what I am working with.

It looks like it is:

Elevation: 20 to 500 feet
Mean annual precipitation: 20 to 30 inches
Mean annual air temperature: 70 to 73 degrees F
Frost-free period: 290 to 340 days
Depth to restrictive feature: More than 80 inches
Drainage class: Well drained
Depth to water table: More than 80 inches
0 to 17 inches: Fine sandy loam
17 to 28 inches: Sandy clay loam
28 to 80 inches: Sandy clay loam
0.72 percent organic matter
26.3 percent clay
56.1 percent sand
17.7 percent silt
with a PH of 8.2

This seems to be a bit contradictory as I don't remember having too good drainage the last time I tested. Do I need to acidify the soil?

I will be adding a large amount of compost and mulch to the rest of my garden and developing a rotation pattern for the annual crops.

I also purchased an inoculation blend of mycorrhizal fungi for all of my plants.

Please warn me if I am doing something wrong. The plants have not arrived yet and I have a little bit more time to prepare.

 

[grapeman]

I don't know a lot about the land in your area or growing conditions but it seems like if the soil seems wet you must have some hardpan or a lot of clay. I would dig a test hole a few feet deep and see what the soil profile looks like. If indeed it is well drained soil with no water table problems, chances are it is hardpan. Usually you can rip the soil if that is the case. See if you can run a ripper down the row and even crossways of the rows if you are planting enough for that. Organic matter is very low. Adding compost will help that and help it drain better eventually.

 

[joshuamurphy75]

That is what I was thinking. Even looking at it, I can tell that the organic matter is quite low. I just didn't want to add a lot of it and find out that the plants are getting too much nitrogen because of it. I suppose I could always do one of the real soil test when I am mixing things up.

For the drainage, I dug a two foot deep by about six inch diameter hole and filled it with water. It took almost two hours to drain. I have never seen standing water above ground there, so it is going somewhere nearby, but I am not comfortable with it puddling underground. As you said, ripping might do the trick, but the only entrance is just big enough for a pickup truck, or van. I am not sure if I can get the equipment back there. I do have a tiller that can fit. would tilling about 3 feet deep where I intend to plant, and adding a tile drain or a French drain 3 feet from the row do the trick?

I did not mention it before, but the ground is sloped at about a 1 foot drop for every 100 feet long.

This is the hole

This is some of the dirt dug out of it

 

[joshuamurphy75]

More progress

Once I was done digging all of the fence posts, I filled them with water to see how the drainage is. The problems seems to be just in the first 15 feet or so of the trellis. This also happens to be the most elevated part. I decided to take my chances and see what happens. I dug in the legumes that I had planted and tilled in about a cubic foot of composted manure for each plant. You can see how I would be unable to bring a tractor that close to the wall.

The 4x4s are to hold the wires, the smaller sticks are to train the vine to for the first year. The vines pictured are all of the table grapes purchased at home depot. The grapes from double a vineyards arrive in march. The poor drainage was between those first two posts. I have not installed the stakes for my guy wires, or the wires themselves yet.

 

[garymc]

Drainage and internal drainage are 2 different things, but sometimes one will help do the job of the other. If you haven't seen standing water, you're probably OK. Compost will loosen the soil until it rots away. Coarse sand will slays be there.

 

[joshuamurphy75]

Good point about the sand, it might not be too late to do that. What kinds of sand will do the trick? Playground sand is fairly easy to find here, and there is some sort of sand that people mix with cement, I forgot what it is called.

 

[joshuamurphy75]

It has been a while since I last posted. The grapes from double a should be arriving in about another week, but the grapes from home depot are in the ground and growing well. I have learned that the information on the USDA's web site is a waste of time. I have noticed a huge difference in soil structure in just a half acre of land.

As I mentioned earlier, I tilled in about one cubic foot of composted cow manure for every six linear feet of trellis, the green manure was tilled in at the same time. When planting, I inoculated the vines with 37 species of beneficial fungi and bacteria. After planting I added seven kinds of legume seeds along with several mint plants. When the plants get too big, I cut them down and leave the tops as mulch. I also added inoculates through deep watering two more times after that. I plan to add a thick layer of leaves and twigs as a mulch in a few days. I did not bother with the sand.

It is too soon to know if what I am doing is going to benefit any.

The first picture here is my current soil in this location. The second picture is a Mars grape vine planted right where I was concerned. The third picture is a Concord vine that I purchased later and just planted a few days ago. It is the worst of my vines so far.