Emma Cooper

All the way back in January I splurged on some cheap fruit plants from Woolworths. The asparagus didn’t make it, neither did the gooseberry. I tried to keep the kiwi alive, but failed.

Despite being planted, for the most part, in small pots everything else has survived. One or two have been moved into bigger tubs.

This morning I decided that today would be a good day to find a permanent home for the grape vines. They will need a fence to scramble up, and the only section of our fence which is currently in a state to support a scrambling vine is the bit inside the chicken playpen.

Which is why my grapevines are behind plastic netting. Hopefully it will be enough to deter the chickens from scratching the poor things straight out of the ground again and from eating all the leaves. Once the vines have grown away a bit, I should be able to take the mesh away – they should produce enough leaves to spare a few for the chickens if they decide they like them.

The only problem is that the instructions say that vines like well-drained soil. There’s not a lot of that to be hard around here….