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!

Cool photo

I took this photo on the property last weekend.  I liked it so I thought I would share...

Foggy days

This winter has not been exactly what we expected.  We were told that winter in the Willamette Valley includes consistent light rain with temperatures in the low 40s.  So far this winter does not follow that pattern; it has been fairly dry with many foggy mornings followed by sunny days.  One recent day on the vineyard started out with heavy fog, but by the end of the day, the sun was shining on Old Wagon Road Vineyard.

Winter pruning

Each winter a major effort goes into pruning the vineyard.  The vines in Old Wagon Road Vineyard are still very young.  These young vines are pruned all the way down to two or three buds.  Each vine ends up being just a few inches high.  It is a drastic amount of growth to trim off, but the trunk is not yet large enough to support a larger plant with grapes.  The grapes that grow this summer will be cut off to allow the plant's energy to focus on root growth.  It will take one more growing season for the trunks and roots to grow before the vines will be trained and the grapes will be retained.

It is a bit hard to see, but there is a pruned vine tied to the bamboo stick

Gewurztraminer

We are enjoying some very good weather for October in the Willamette Valley.  It has been fairly warm and dry.  It is perfect weather to finish up some tasks on the vineyard.

We spent some time last weekend planting a couple hundred Gewurztraminer vines.  Normally I let Chris handle the manual labor, but I got my hands dirty and helped out with the planting.  We were lucky enough to recruit Johnny and Sammy again.  Johnny was a great help...Sammy was still a dog.

We had purchased these vines a while ago and they were stored away until we could plant them.  Unfortunately, some of the vines did not do so well.  We had about a 30% loss rate.  The good vines were planted in the north west corner of the property.  It is hard to see them in this picture, but trust me, they are there.

Here is an updated shot of the vines we planted a couple of weeks ago.  They are not doing much right now, but come spring, they should be more active.

If you have been reading the blog for a while, you know that one major challenge is the access.  We currently access the property via an easement through our neighbor's property.  The area we have to cross is used as a horse pasture; the gates on each side and the horses in the road make this a less than ideal path.

A while ago, we found that there is an old county road that we could finish that would make our access much easier.  We have finally started on this work!  I will post some pictures when I get them.

Fall planting

It is fall in the Willamette Valley.  The trees are changing colors, the temperatures are lowering and the rain will be here soon.   We were lucky last weekend to have a crystal clear day.

We were not out there just for fun...it was time for us to plan some more vines!  We spent last weekend planting about 300 sauvignon blanc vines.  Fortunately, our new friends Jesse, Johnny, and Sammy (their adorable puppy) came out to help.  Fall is a good time to plant the vines because they will benefit from the wet winter.  The picture below is about half of the SB vines we had to plant this fall.

Johnny worked ahead with the auger to prep the holes for the vines.

Jesse and Chris (with little help from Sammy) planted each vine by hand.  It might look like Chris was just 'supervising', but he really did plant some, too.

Sammy enjoyed running around the vineyard searching for little critters.

The existing plants are doing well. The Pinot Noir is still in grow tubes.  They will likely stay on for another growing season.  Chris has done a great job getting the weeds under control and the cover crop has started to grow.  You can see in these pictures that the rows have just dirt with the vines and the alleys have green cover crop growing.

The existing sauvignon blanc vines are doing very well!  It is a bit hard to tell in this picture, but all of the plants have grown a lot since they were planted.  We might even get a small crop of SB to play with next year!

In addition to the SB, we have about 80 more Pinot Noir plants in 1 gallon pots waiting to go in the ground.  These will probably not be planted until next spring.

Late summer progress

Our first set of vines have now been in the ground for several months.  It is late summer, and in a matter of weeks, the vines will be hibernating for the winter.  Overall, the plants look good.  We are excited about the progress made so far this year on the vineyard.

This first pictures is possibly the most exciting picture to date of the vines...it is the first crop! OK, it is a bit early to expect a good crop, but having a few grapes on a few plants is still exciting.  These pinot noir grapes were very tasty as a mid-afternoon snack.

Grapes!

Farmer Chris

And here is an updated picture of me and Jensen.