A few years ago when we started the vineyard we had almost 2 acres of weeds and grass.  Then when we tilled, it seemed like the mustard and radish took over.  Since we are farming organically, we did not use round-up…just pulled weeds and then in 2011 we put down weed cloth in the vine rows.  In additionally, we have put down red clover the last few years to out compete the weeds.  You can see in the above picture that this year it is almost where I had envisioned 3 years ago.  A thick, healthy cover crop.  However, we still have some dandelion weeds.  So last week we went up and down every row and shoveled them out.  I’m sure we will have to do this again in a few weeks, but at least without 5 wheel barrows of weeds, I hope this will prevent weeds later in the year!

This is what the weeds looked like in 2010 before we planted the vines.  What a difference to what we have today!