Before you buy the tree, dig the hole.

I bought two trees without preparing a place for them in the soil. Those trees lasted two years, one of them in Wyona's garden, before they found their final resting spot. I heard the phrase, "Dig the hole before you buy the tree" plenty of times in those two years.

In the finest tradition of what I learned about planting the Italian plum tree and a cherry tree, I began to think first of where to plant the new grape vine I intended to buy.

Joaquim and I tried to dig a hole 2 feet x 3 feet x 2 feet, sift the gravel out (my lot is on an old stream bed) and put back the sandy soil in the hole for the grape vine.

Four hours later we had succeeded. He did all of the pick-axing, and the shoveling of the rocks onto the grate. I moved the soil through the wire mesh and to the wheel barrow. I carried the left-over rocks to a place where I shall build a rock wall with them.

Joaquim says it was easier digging a fox hole when he was in the Spanish army, than digging that hole for the grape vine.

My last vine, a red seedless grape called Candice, is moving up the side of the house and now I am out looking for a green variety, but have not purchased it yet.

I only have the hole dug.

Arta