Propagating a Clematis Vine

I just love flowering clematis vines!  

There are so many different colors and types and all are beautiful growing up a trellis, over an arbor, up a lamppost, along a fence, or just anywhere really. 

The best way to grow clematis is from clematis cuttings.

Propagation is pretty easy and you can have anywhere from a 50% to up to a 90% success rate.

The Clematis is in the Buttercup family and hundreds of species and cultivars of clematis exist around the world. 

How To Make Grape Juice

Ripe grapes in Michigan

Homemade Grape Juice

A few years ago my daughter's mother-in-law Julie gave us 2 cases of grapes.  I decided to come up with something to do with all those grapes besides just eating them and making grape jelly, so I made grape juice.

Recently I have been getting grapes from our neighbor’s vines for free but I noticed this spring they removed all their vines and the trellis they were hanging on.  My heart sank. 

To have our own supply I have planted 5 grape vines in the last 3 years. Three are doing very well; two are struggling, but hopefully we will have our own grape harvest.

Building a Pumpkin Arbor

Pumpkin Arbor (July 2010)

My side garden before trellis was finished

I love pumpkins. They are just a beautiful fruit, can be used in many ways and are edible. The bright orange color of pumpkin is a dead giveaway that pumpkin is loaded with an important antioxidant, beta-carotene.

Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and wove them into mats. They also roasted long strips of pumpkin on the open fire and ate them.

The origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. The pumpkin was then baked in hot ashes.

Pumpkins are cucurbits, the fruit of a herbaceous annual plant of the gourd family that thrives in hot, dry conditions and includes squash, melons, watermelons and cucumbers.

This year I decided to construct an arbor for
pumpkins and gourd vines to climb over.  (Photo above right is before arbor was finished)

I first saw an arbor similar to the one I had in mind while visiting a farm market outside Chillicothe, Ohio last fall.