We finally have a day to just work the gardens.  I spent the morning weeding the strawberries and got alot of it done but need about three more days to finish.  I can see where I need to put in more plants next spring and will do so.   Norman has spent the morning in the grape garden.  He took out the last of the old arbor and put in posts for the cross bars for the new arbor.  After dinner I will tie up the vines to the new arbor and prun out any that don’t have a bar to grow on.  From now on the vine will be only as long and large as the arbor will support, that way we should get larger grapes and larger clumps.  Al;so, when I did it five years ago I used the green twist ties.  They worked well and have lasted nicely but as the vine got larger the twist ties have cut into the vine which is not good!!  Three years ago I was sewing Barbie clothes and needed all the lace I could get, my sister helped out at a thrift store and saw they had boxes and boxes of old lace of all sizes and told her fellow workers I could use it, they gave me the lace —  two great big boxes of it all tangles up and in a mess.  I sorted through it and because I just can’t throw anything out I just stored the lace in the attic, all wrapped on pieces of cardboard.  Some pieces were a couple feet long others a couple yards long, some 1/2 inch wide some 5 inches wide and all inbetween.  This year we had so many tomatoes to tie up and twine is so expensive when you needs tons of it, we started using the lace to tie up the tomatoes and found it was gentler on the plants than the twist ties or twine and it didn’t rot like the twine since most lace now is made of nylon thread.  So since I still have lots of lace that is what I will use to tie the grapes to the cross bar and it will not cut into the vines as they grow.  The twist ties are still good for the raspberries since the cane is cut back to the ground each year so I can use all my old twist ties for those and save my grapes by using lace.  I also use the lace for the fence to keep the deer out of my garden.  A rope around the garden about 3 to 4 feet high with strings of lace tied every foot all around keeps the deer out completely.  I guess they see the movement of the lace and they think it is solid or that someone is there but since we put it up last year we have not had one deer in our blueberries, hosta, or garden.   Once I get the vines all tied in place we will put on some horse manure and mulch good and leave the vines alone until spring when they will need more fertilizer and attention.  Hope this has given you an idea.  Have a great day.