A Grape Arbour on a New Deck: The Yew Street Project

This is one way to accommodate the needs of a food garden, while also making a beautiful, usable space for the human inhabitants of the garden! Below are a few shots of our most recent project, completed at the end of February: overlooking the back yard, a new deck and stairs, made to host a beautiful old grape vine.

The first shot shows the new deck - and stairs up and down - before we added the grape arbour (the owner needed time to think about just what was wanted for the vine!) Then we added the arbour, and tied the vine (dormant at this time of year) to it. 

The grape will grow quickly come summer, across the arch, along the bars towards the wall of the house, where the arbour becomes a series of parallel wires for the vine to spread out on. Not only will the vine no longer impede the stairs (it used to grow all over the lower stairs), but it will now get great sun exposure, so the grapes can ripen to full perfection! 

The added bonus is that in the summer, the vine's dense foliage will create a beautiful, shady cover for the people of the house (imagine a long, cold drink at your elbow, while you dream in the summer heat), and will help to keep the house cool, too! For further photos of this and other FarmCity projects, check out our Recent Projects page!

Comments

[Rob - Young Snowbirds]

Really love the idea of the arbour. We have a deck here in Edmonton, on the North side of an avenue receiving TONS of southern sun. I've thought of putting something up that could climb over and cover our deck in shade. Grape vine might just be the ticket.

Hmmmm, where would I get a vine now though? and would it like our soil? and would it make it through our winters?

hmmmmm.