These past few days my task was to trim the vine. As I mentioned before, this is a job that needs to be done regularly, kind of like by the time you finish it, you can start again, so you're never bored as this never ends. What I'm doing now is crucial for the end result though. Grapes need to grow now, they need sunlight and leaving the jungle to grow will not help grapes ripe. This is a job for men usually, but I don't care. It's not a hard job, it's relaxing, helps me think of thing I need to do and maybe figure out new solutions, so I'm doing it.
While trimming the jungle (ok, it's not really a jungle as we don't let it get to that point), I noticed these leaves and that was a bitter sweet moment for me. Sweet because one of the most beautiful leave during autumn is the grape leave, due to its wonderful colors. I'm always doing a photo shoot or two when these leaves appear, so obviously I was happy to see them. But it was a bitter moment as well, because these leaves should turn red only at the end of September, middle of October and right now we're at the beginning of August.
These are unedited photos, so this is what the leaves look like. Look at those veins and colors. That green look amazing with that dark red, or claret, call it whatever you like.
If you look closely, you can see the red color starts to appear not at the veins, but between them and the veins are left last to turn red. Also, usually the leaves are darker green, but when time comes, they turn light green.
Even yellow as you can see on this one.
For me, this is art by mother nature and I hope I'm not the only one to appreciate this beauty.
Grapes are far from being ripe. They still need 2 months to be sweet and to reach the sugar level that is needed. But if the laves starting to go, we may have a problem. I can't remember if there has been similar case over the years, I need to ask my dad.
So I was wondering what could cause the leaves to turn rd already and dry. You may say lack of water, but unlike in previous years, this year was not so dray. Besides, old vine has deep roots, can reach down where there's plenty of water, so even a drought season can be fine.
At first I thought it was an isolated case, I thought most likely one stem is affected, which is not a big deal after all.
Then I found another one, on the other side, another type of grapes and it looks like it's going to spread, I mean more and more leaves are going to turn red and dry. Well, we'll see. There's not much we can do about it anyway.
This is the beginning, this is how it stats.
While trimming the vine, I spotted this little guy. It was a miracle as his color is the same as the leaves and I'm pretty sure a few of you won't notice him at first glance. I'm not friends with them, not even a fan, but was glad to take a few photos, of which only one is usable :)
I hope you like the grape leaves. There' more to cone, once the time comes. I don't ant to miss it s it's a real spectacle crated by mother nature. You can learn a lot just by looking at these leaves, especially if you're an artist.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
