Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the variety of grapevine that I planted in our container this Summer (Somerset) and mentioned that I did that just because I wanted to post a follow-up.  Today, is that follow-up.  You can see that we have been attacked by some Japanese Beetles.  They've basically skeleton-ized some of the larger leaves.  Unfortunately, they arrived when I was out of town for the better part of a week, so they got a head start.  Since then, I've tried to monitor the plants and remove the beetles everyday by hand.  I tried drowning them in soapy water with mixed results.  Turns out, the Japanese Beetle is a known grapevine.  This piece from My Grape Vine says : The Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica, also known as the jitterbug) is one of the most visible and most destructive feeders of grape vine foliage out there. The Japanese beetle attacks most green parts of the grape vine, but mostly feeds on young leaves in the upper ...

Back in July, I posted a photo of our mid-Summer containers on our back patio and mentioned that I somehow failed to mention/post the details of the grapes that we planted in one of our wine barrel planters.  Above, you can see the variety:  Somerset grapes.  They're self-pollinating and so far, I don't have any fruit coming in this first season. I'm hoping that they'll overwinter in the barrel and come back next Spring.  I'm posting this mostly because I want to write something here on the blog that I'll post tomorrow showing the current state of this vine. 

Some friends came over for pizza this weekend and they brought some fruit including these Cotton Candy grapes.  And you know what?  They TOTALLY taste like cotton candy.  I had NEVER heard of these things before I ate a few and I was completely amazed. They're apparently ' taking the world by storm ' and with good reason they're a delight to eat.  They proudly have a 'non-gmo' label on them, but aren't they actually modified food stuffs?  They're grown by cross-cultivating two different grape varieties : They are made by plant breeding, meaning that farmers who cultivate these grapes cross different types of grapes together. David Cain, a horticulturist, and his team at the International Fruit Genetics in Bakersfield, California mixed two types of grapes — a Concord-like grape and seedless Vitis vineferia, which is a grape vine commonly found in the Mediterranean. Sounds modified to me?  And that's just fine thank you.