I am positively heartbroken! My grapevine that I tended with so much love and care after the mishap of the previous year, did exactly the same thing. I have been treating it with copper sulphate since the moment it started to get into leave, as the previous season it was beautiful, with the nicest bunches of grapes, when suddenly the leaves started getting brown, and within a week there was almost no leaves left. The grapes then started getting soft, and went all wrinkly, and I had to cut the vine down a lot.
that is why I was so careful this year, and read up a lot about pests that can attack a vine.
However, I decided to take the vine out altogether, as that is recommended for blight and rust, as it could be all kinds of stuff. As there is a cement path between the little furrow that runs in front of my house, and then the rest of my garden, I never gave a thought to the fact that it could not be rust. I really got the most frightful surprise, when on starting to take out the vine that is planted inside an opening left on the side of the path, next to the house, to find that the poor vine had no soil near its roots! Oh, I was ready for mole murder!
Now I have taken out all the soil to about eighteen inches deep, and laid a fine chicken mesh inside the hole before filling it up again. I stamped it down well, and hoped that the moles had departed for greener pastures, and couldn't believe it when now, two days later, I saw new cracks in the soil, indicating that the moles found their way back!
I so badly wanted the vine to grow over the small gazebo I have put up, and it was fast doing so, but now I am a bitty disheartened, knowing that the moles still found their way back underneath the cement path. I really do not know what to do.
In the meantime I am busy with canning and making jams, still, and as the tick fever will take about ten days to subside, I spent a lot of time lying down, making murderous plans of how to kill the bally moles.
I have a bit of a worry because of the baby, as Jan was in Johannesburg again, and because I felt ill, I left him the whole day with the nanny. However, when I went during the afternoon to see how he was doing, I found Emil in the cot, screaming his head off, and the nanny watching television.
I asked why he was in the cot anyway, and she said that she wanted him to sleep a while, and I became really cross, as it was an hour before he came to me, when I would feed him and put him to bed. I told her to get him out of the cot, and go for a walk, then give him his bath before she left.