Category Archives: Wine Growing

Growing Fast

I’m going to take pictures of one of the vines weekly to show how fast it grows. Amazing how fast all of the plants are growing now. The one in the picture has a shoot that is already 14” tall……now we just have to hope the growing season is mild and we don’t get any big rains during bloom.

I have chosen a vine that was picked 2 years ago by a friend of ours, Lynne. We will nurture this vine so that it will prosper and give her inspiration as she recovers from her second bout with breast cancer. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Disbudding and removing twins

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I know….a few weeks ago I was all excited about new buds on the grapevines…..and now I’m going to debud a lot of them….what is going on?

Well, grapevines are like unruly people in the spring and summer….they try and do anything they want. They put out buds on the trunks and in many cases put out double buds. As I have talked many times, you need balance in your vines. So, you have to remove all the buds from the trunks and also remove the secondary bud (the small twin bud).

Removing buds from the trunks is easy. Just get a thick glove and rub your hand down the trunk. It only took me about 5 hours to do the entire vineyard. The twins are a much more difficult as you have to make a judgement on each one. I just started this, but I’m guessing it will take me 15-20 hours. It is crucial to do all of these early since the vine is putting a lot of effort in growing these unwanted shoots.

Below I have some before and after pictures.

Joey’s doing her vines

Removing twins – before Removing twins – after

March Work

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OK….forget all the work. See what I saw today in the picture? My first 2 bunches of grapes that will go into the 2012 harvest! So excited!!! It just reminds me that harvest is just around the corner. Pray that we don’t get any hard freezes in the next month.

Almost done tying the vines to the rebar and highway stakes and will start my spray program in about 3 weeks. I’m also buying a small sprayer that I can tow behind the lawn tractor that will save me from doing it all with a back pack sprayer.

April 19 – 3 hours spraying (12 gal water w/1 1/3 cups seranade and 1 1/3 cups copper), de-budding
April 18 – Weeding/mulch/mowing/digging – 8 hours + 8 hours hired
April 17 – 1 hour tying/de-budding
April 11 – 1 hour de-budding, 2 hours mowing
April 10 – 1 hour de-budding
April 6 – 4 hours de-budding
April 5 – 3 hours weeding
April 4 – 4 hours mowing/weed whacking
April 3 – 5 hours mowing/grow tubes/weed whacking
March 28 – 3 hours mowing and tying
March 22 – 4.5 hours (Tying, front vineyard)
March 21 – 6 hours (tying, mowing, front vineyard)
March 20 – 3 hours (tying)
March 11 – 4 hours front vineyard + Don’s time
March 10 – 4 hours fence + Don’s time
March 6 – 3 hours (mowing)

The 2012 Growing Season begins

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I’m calling it for Turtle Vines…..bud break for 2012 was on 3/20/2012. Last year it was March 22nd…..very interesting. Last year was very cold and wet but the plants were only a year old. Normally vines that are young bud break earlier because he ground heats up sooner. This year the weather has been warm but the vines are a year older. Amazing how factors cancel each other out so that bud break is within days of each other two years in a row.

Lest you think I can slack off for a while…….as soon as the small shoot is about 3-6” long, I have to start my year long organic spraying program. This should happen mid to end of April. In addition, all of the buds on the trunks of the vines have to be taken off……about 6 per vines. About 20,000 in total have to taken off by hand. Normally you run your hand down the trunk and they come off. Again….more good work for my back!!!

Joey’s Sauvignon blanc vineyard

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With the help of our friends Don and Lynne Smith from New Jersey, we got Joey’s Sauvignon blanc vineyard all wired and set up for the season. It was sort of sad to cut off all the growth from last year, but she will get about 50 pounds of grapes this harvest and will get maybe a dozen bottles of wine that we will be drinking a year from now! I put below a picture of the vineyard last year and some pictures of the vineyard being set up this year.

Tying the trunks

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So….since our vines are small still, this year we will only be tying the trunks to the 3’ tall rebar at the start of the season. This is to ensure that the trunks grow straight and tall. I asked everyone I know and they all said the best thing to tie them with is “green” plant tape. The reasoning is that the trunk will continue to grow and the tape will last a few years and stretch with it. Next year we might be able to tie the canes to the fruiting wire assuming that the canes are big enough. I hope I can use a more automated system to save time…..again, just multiply the seconds for each plant to get the hours it will take me to complete the task…..15 seconds equals almost 15 hours of vineyard time!!!

Oh….since we are a small boutique vineyard I found brown colored “green” tape. It is the same color as the vines so it blends in to the vineyard.

Below I put pictures of the process…..1) The tool is open, 2) When you lightly close the Tapener it grabs the “brown” tape, 3) Then you push it around the vine and rebar, 4) Finally you staple the tape and it cuts it to length.

Pretty easy, except I have to do this around 9,000 times!

Replants and Puny Vines

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Every year I have to do a plant replacement program. Some don’t grow big enough, some the gophers eat (the roots), some get hit by a weed whacker….you get the idea. I went through the vineyard and re-planted around 50 vines and determined that another 200 or so the trunks were not big enough to use, so I cut them back to the ground. It will help in the long run, but was sad when I had to cut them off.

In the picture above, all of the vines with “grow tubes” are either replants or I have cut them off. This is a particularly bad section.

I figure I started with 3130 vines and I replanted or started over approximately 300 vines so I have 2800 vines for my first harvest. If I get 0.5 lbs per plant, I’ll get 1400 lbs……enough for 600 bottles.

Pruning

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So, you might we wondering why I titled this “Can you count to four”. Well, as I’m learning, pruning and growing grapes is all about keeping the fruit and the leaves/vine growth in balance. Since my little vines are now in their 3rd leaf (or will be as soon as I get bud break) I don’t want to get to much fruit this year, or the vine won’t have enough leaves to produce photosynthesis and ripen the grapes. Normally with mature Pinot noir vines you would get two clusters of berries every 6 inches if you are trying to get high quality wine…..or about 3 pounds per plant. Since this is our first harvest, the grape clusters will be smaller and we will limit the number of clusters to only get 0.5 to 1 pound per vine. The way you do that is with pruning…….and the way to do that is to control the number of buds. Buds are the fuzzy growth you get on every plant in the spring…..grape vines are no different. For each bud you might get 1 to 2 grape clusters…..so, to make my long story short, I’m pruning to 4 buds this year, next year to about 6 and eventually between 8 and 12.

The picture above is a pruned vine…..I put below the before and after. It is a little sad to cut off so much of the growth from last year, but it will let the vine only put its energy into the shoots with grape clusters. So, the process is:
1. Cut the trunk about 4-6 inches below the fruiting wire
2. Trim off the shoots from last year to just outside the bud and do this for 4 buds
3. Cut off all the remaining shoots and buds to the bottom of the vine
4. After you have finished pruning for the day, you need to paint a 3% Serenade solution to prevent eutypa (a fungus that will destroy your vines).
5. Do this 3150 times!!!

The first day I did this I was learning and probably spent 25 seconds per plant…..and when I finished today I got to around 10–15 seconds per plant.

January 22 – 5 hours pruning
January 23 – 3 hours pruning
January 30 – 5.5 hours pruning
January 31 – 3 hours pruning
February 1 – 3 hours pruning

Total Pruning – 19.5 hours

Next up is replanting vines that died last year and then tying up the vines to the rebar. Hopefully most of this will get done in February.

Looking for Grubs

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Just a few weeks ago I finished laying weed cloth and putting mulch on the vineyard. Well, what do raccoons like, grubs….and where do they look….yes, under mulch (see the above picture).
So, the hunt for raccoons is beginning again….can’t let up…..have to be smarter than they are!

Rain

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Seems like forever ago that it last rained (OK 35 days, but for Sonoma County in winter that is forever)…..and we need it. Although it was a nice change from last year when we had over 50 inches of rain. By the way, if you have never been here, the last storm was representative of what we get….1” on Thursday, 3.5” Friday, perhaps another 3” on Sunda and then sun for 5 days.

So if you read the last post… I finished the weeding/mulching project just yesterday. In the next 9 weeks I have to prune the main vineyard, trim some trees in the back, install 2 fences, install the hardware for Joey’s front vines and prune those vines. I just need about 10 days in the next 50 to get this all done. Oh….and take control of the moles, gophers and those pesky racoons.