Monthly Archives: April 2010

Planting

planting early

Ends up after our inspection we were around 500 short….so on Friday and Saturday we planted all of the Pommard and most of the 667. Greg Adams came out to show us the procedure and off we went.

The day before Joey and I put 1100 pounds of Organic Dry Crumbles (fertilizer) next to each hole. This will get mixed in as they get planted and give the plants a little extra boost as they start to grow. In addition, in the area where we had grass and scraped off most of the topsoil, we added compost to the soil to help the plants.

In the bottom pictures you can see us cleaning used grow tubes. Seems like there is a friendly business of using them and then selling them the next year for 20 cents. We also borrowed some from another vineyard owner……so helpfull. Later we put them on….they help the plants grow and protect them from critters and hot/cold spikes.planting

Our little Babies are reading to be inspected !!!

sorting vinesHere is Joey with Greg Adams, sorting our 3200 vines at the storage facility. We drove from Sebastopol to St. Helena and spent 3 hours testing the grafts, looking for “rock star” roots and making sure they were in good health. The ones above are the Pommard, and even though they are on the same rootstock as the 667, the batch we got seemed to be in much better shape. We will see how they end up in the field and if it makes a difference.

Rather than waiting for a truck the next day, we put them in Greg’s truck and headed home with them after we were done. I would recommend this to anyone who is planting a vineyard. You can really see the quality of the vines up close and personal.

raw vines grape nursery