A beautiful day for post pounding

The new vines are in the ground, but the trellis is not yet in place.  Building the trellis is time consuming and labor intensive.  We hired someone to pound in the end posts with their tractor, but all of the metal posts (over 500!) had to be pounded in by hand.  Once the posts are in, the wires must be run and the irrigation must be installed.  It will take several weeks to complete the project.

The placement of each post was meticulously determined to ensure the vineyard is accurately laid out.  A string from end post to end post north to south, and another string east to west, is used to mark the post placement.  Once the spot is established, the post is pounded down to an exact height.  It is important that the location and height be very accurate so that the wire and the vines match up as planned.

Here are some pictures of the new are in the south east corner of the vineyard.

Metal posts are being installed for the rows

A row in the middle is completed first to help with measurements

View from the south side of the block

The block just north of the house site already has the poles in place.

Panoramic from the home site.  The vineyard will be about 40 feet from the house.

New vine checkup

Last week started with 2,500 vines in pots delivered to the property, and it ended with all of those vines in the ground!  It has now been about a week and I finally got a chance to go out and check out the new plantings for myself.

A majority of the new vines were Pinot Noir, but there was also some Sauvignon Blanc.  Some of the new vines have already sprouted leaves, however most of them have only buds.  Soon all of the vines will be flourishing.

Pinot Noir vine that already has leaves

Pinot Noir vine with buds

Now that the new vines are in the ground, Chris will have to start work on the trellis.   As it turns out, building the trellis is a very time consuming process with many steps.  It all starts with the end posts.  The 8' posts will be pounded into the ground sometime this week.  Each post must be pounded down and secured with a thick wire and earth anchor.  Once the posts are in the ground, the process of pulling and securing the many wires will begin.  The first one to be added is the sprinkler wire; this is the wire that will secure the irrigation lines.  The second is the fruiting wire.  It will be used to help secure the young vines while they grow; later it will be used to hold up the fruit.  The upper wires include the canopy wires (2 sets) and the wind wire.  In addition to the wire, the irrigation will have to be extended to the new rows.

The pruning over winter resulted in a few vines being 'trunked' and most being 'two budded'.  Trunking a vine is pruning the vine to allow fruit growth the following season.  If the vine was thick enough at the end of last season, it was trunked.  Those that were not thick enough yet were two budded.  This pruning technique reduces the size of the vine to promote more root growth.  These vines will not be allowed to produce fruit this year.  The fruit will be cut off so that the energy is not wasted on ripening the grapes.

Trunked vine

Two-budded vine

A post with the lower set of canopy wires installed

Over 2,500 vines to plant!

The vines have finally arrived.  We ordered over 2,500 vines that have to be planted this spring.  Some of the vines are already 2 years old while others are 1 year old.  No matter what the age, all of them have to go into the ground on the vineyard.

With the help of at least 10 others, Chris got all of the new vines planted.  The bulk of the work was done in 1.5 days.  It is hard to see the new vines in these photos, but trust me, they are there!  The black dots you see are the empty pots.  Those have all been cleaned up.

Spring chores

The spring rain has brought the vineyard back to life!  This spring is a busy time; the normal spring maintenance has to start and the vineyard has to be prepared for the new vines.  These chores will mean a lot of time spent on the property...at least by Chris.  I will mostly be home int he warm dry house with Jensen.

Layout - With approximately 2,500 new vines due to arrive this spring, one of the first tasks is to complete the layout.  Chris and I went out one damp weekend to get started.  Preparing the layout entails accurately measuring between existing plants and the new plant location.  A small bamboo stick has to be placed in the ground at each spot you intend to plant a new vine.  It is a somewhat tedious task.  We managed to finish a small block over  4 or 5 hours.  Over the following weekends, Chris continued work on the layout with hired labor.  They finished up much faster than we would have without the help!

Mowing - The cover crop in the vineyard has definitely started to grow again.  Farmer Chris spent some time recently to mow it.  It looked so nice when it was done.

Weed control - In addition to mowing, weed control is an important spring task.  I got to play around on the ATV to do some of the weed spraying.  I did the fence line.  Chris did the in row spraying that will keep the weeds from growing near the vines.

Trellis construction - The trellis for the existing plants is missing some of the support wires called the catch wires.  These are used to catch the canopy  when it starts to grow larger throughout the season.  There is a lower set and a higher set.  Chris has been working hard with the help of hired labor to install the catch wires.  Soon he will also have to start work on the trellis for the new plantings.

As you can tell, there is a lot to do on the vineyard.  This will be a very busy growing season.  We hope to get a small crop off of the sauvignon blanc vines, but the we will drop the fruit from all of the other vines to encourage root growth.

Keep an eye on the blog for the latest updates!