NOT SOUR GRAPES

Planting grapes at last, only two vines but what the hell. Book says "Prepare your grapevine bed a year in advance." Why the hell didn't it say that last year? And then the soil pH was a point too high, grapes being like blueberries in that regard, liking it oh, say 5 to 6, somewhere in there, and the actual soil was 6.9, so I do what little I can to try and fix that, coax the grapes into settling for less but things don't come that easy, grapes are not good listeners, they have their own way of doing things and I suppose that's best all around, besides it's getting dark and starting to rain, still I can't turn back now, then in the dimness I recall the book says cut the vine down to the first two viable buds. I look at the vine, what the hell does a viable bud look like at dusk, none of these look like anything but a little patch of tired brown velvet, about like I feel right now, so I just plant the vines, will cut later, when bud viability is evident at some warm spring dawn down the road. But of course that is NOT the way it is done. Cut BEFORE you plant, says the book. Five minutes' experience in growing grapes would be worth all the books on grapes in the world. But as always, five minutes' experience at grape-growing is never there when you need it. The way it's done best is to be born the sixteenth generation of a grape-growing family, and even then nothing is guaranteed. And this is not sour grapes.