Sunday, July 25, 2010

Birds and Grapes

Concord grapes

I love having birds to watch in my backyard just outside my kitchen window. I have all the things that attract them to the area – birdfeeders, including a suet feeder and two birdbaths. Yesterday it was close to 100° out and I had the joy of watching four birds splashing around at once in the large birdbath. An amazing sight! I have found though that birds love grapes as much as we do and I have pretty much surrendered our grapes to them after finding for years that there isn't much you can do to save the fruit from our feathered friends. I tried netting the grape vines to keep the birds out and it was just a mess and not very attractive visually.

Perfect form. Notice the clipped end on the vine here. To keep the vines from covering the house and orderly, I cut them back twice in the growing season.

Surprisingly, this year we have quite a bunch of grapes that the birds have left for us. Last night I clipped a few and they were really tasty. They really have that flavor of the sugary sweet Welch's grape juice. Most however, still have some ripening left to do. Hopefully, we can get to them before the birds do.

2 comments:

Jeff Branch said...

Very interesting. I wonder if I could grow grapes here and you are right pretty form. We got some rain yesterday afternoon and more is forcast for today, so my plants are not so stressed. We are still under a heat advisory :o

Amy L said...

You are really sweet to the birds...I would want those grapes! Lovely shots girl!