CHRIS RUNDLE
THE HOUSE MOVE DID NOT GO DOWN WELL WITH THE GRAPE VINES, SAYS CHRIS RUNDLE
MY friend Tony was thin to the point that if he ate a grape you’d think he’d developed a hernia. Not that he would find as much as a single specimen in the garden this year, sadly. It’s the vine, you see.
We brought it with us when we moved; a veteran of some seven seasons which had been providing us with a moderate crop of juicy black grapes every autumn – as long as we got to them before the blackbirds did. The blackbirds which, naturally, barely gave the food we had put out for them on the bird table as much as a glance as they flew past it on the way to perform their predations.
We were very keen to bring it with us so I asked Keith, who gave us a hand in the garden now and then, how we should go about it. Dig it up while it’s dormant and put it in a big tub and then get it into the ground as soon as you get to the new place, he said.
Then, he said, walking around the vine and observing it closely, one of two things will happen. I awaited the delivery of the next, succinct nugget of horticultural wisdom distilled from his years of experience. Yeah, he said. Either it will be OK - or it will die.
He didn’t say anything about sulking. And sulking is definitely what the vine has been doing since we got here. We found a nice, sheltered spot with a southerly aspect to plant it. We prepared the soil well and made sure it was draining properly so the vine didn’t have to sit around with wet roots. We eased it in, replaced the soil around it, watered it and provided it with a couple of strong canes for support.
And that vine just sulked. It visibly sulked. Clearly it was upset because we hadn’t asked its opinion about moving house and particularly about whether it minded being dug up, shoved into a pot, taken on a rattling journey with all the other garden pots and finally deposited in totally unfamiliar surroundings.
There may have been other issues. Perhaps it didn’t like the neighbours. Perhaps their dog was too noisy. Perhaps it didn’t like having to look at a washing line two or three yards away. Perhaps it was just homesick and missing the company of the raspberries that used to grow next to it.
Anyway, it was weeks into the spring (and almost at the point where we had given up hope and concluded that Keith’s more pessimistic option had come true) when it finally decided to wake up, put out a bud or two and reluctantly (and you could almost hear it huffing and puffing about it) start to produce some branches.
But fruit? Not a chance. Not this year. Not after all we have put it through. Its outrage may have dissipated by next year but in the meantime I shall have to step round to the greengrocer for a supply of grapes to use in some unlikely, but delicious pairings.
The first for guinea fowl, one of two poultry breeds named after its place of origin. In this case the area formerly known as the Guinea Coast in Africa.
The other is the turkey, but that of course is a misnomer. The birds originally came from the New World: Turkey was merely the last port of call before London for the spice ships bringing them here.