We are wrapping up another year and another chapter in this venture. Each year that goes by is one more closer to first crush. Jerry completed the 2nd round of pruning in late July and August so the vineyard looks like it is in control again. He has steadfastly weedwacked the weeds into submission, using post emergent herbicide to give them their final blow. It has worked to some degree, and hopefully the lessons we learned this year can be transferred to next year, both for Block 1 and our Block 2 expansion.
The spray schedule carried us through mid-September and for the most part it did its job. No bug damage that we could find other than the occasional Japanese beetle having a food orgy. And black rot and other fungicide problems didn't seem to pop up either.
Our main concern regarding these things is that my next door neighbor had an herbicide spray that floated over to the vineyard (and on Jerry) and killed some of our new leaf growth. We didn't have any fruit this year so my concern is more towards killing my help. I'll have to chase the farmer down in the off season and see if we can arrange a way not to have his sprays travel. It didn't seem like he was too concerned about spraying during the evening or an otherwise calm moment.
Of course there are still the deer. They left us alone during the season......too many other good things to eat I guess. But now that we stopped spraying some of the bad taste may have rinsed off in a rain making the grape leaves more appetizing. Just a theory.
We did get some fruit on our Seyval Blancs this year. Most of it we snipped off but we did save some bunches for sugar testing. This year was Diane and my 36th wedding anniversary. I was convinced it was the year of "vineyard equipment". I got her a refractometer (good thing it wasn't the year of the snow shovel) which we put to use and found that we had a Brix reading of 20. This translates to a sugar content of about 10%. If it was a harvest year we would need to let the bunches hang longer.
We also transplanted some our our baby crape myrtles that we had put in the ground when we first moved in. These we have lining one side of the driveway just when you enter the farm. They struggled the first year they were in, but now they are branching out and having a personality that includes upward and outward growth, along with some bright red coloring.
It is Fall now and we also decided to start up a small Christmas tree plot. Diane, through years of subjective analysis, has decided that Fraiser Firs are the best trees for indoor decoration, so she went out and bought 50 trees. I felt that it would be a good tradition in 6 or 7 or 8 years to invite old friends down around Thanksgiving and have them cut a tree for their holiday celebration. We placed them in a plot to the rear of the farm, and shy of the deer once again making their presence known, they are care free with the exception that they are one more thing that Jerry has to water by hand, since there is no water there.
The next real trigger point is November 1st. Why November 1st you ask ? During September I had asked Farmer Mac who is farming all the land I haven't converted yet with soy to give me the best guess as to when he will harvest the beans. His guess at the time was November 1st being the first frost, so within 2 weeks after that time he would be stripping the fields of their bounty. We need Block 2 for our next expansion, which we want to start preparing in the Fall. Through trial and error in Block 1 we need to get the posts in the ground and do a few other things before we start planting in April. More detail on that later. October will be planning for another year, and another chapter.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Rule #1:Never Let The Weeds Get Ahead of You, Rule#2: Never Let...
As you can see by the title, I am obsessed with getting rid of weeds. I feel they are the major hurdle in achieving a smooth-running, and professional looking vineyard. Of course this also includes the fact that weeds steal important nutrients from the ground, or water required in the growing of the grapes.
The summer of 2009 has fallen into maintenance mode. We for the most part have gone through the vines the first time for their required pruning. It seemed to take forever but that task is behind us. There will be a second pruning later in the summer to rid of growth we don't need considering next year's plan of attack. And if you're putting energy into shoots that just get cut off any, why keep them ?
We also are doing our weekly mowing to keep grass levels low.We don't want them to grow high enough to go to seed; that's a problem we don't want to add to the list. Jerry is also wrapping up the stapling required to support the wires at the 3rd level. We still need to put the top wires in but there isn't the necessity to get it done this year.....we will need them for next year however, especially for the Nortons. That is a good end of season or winter project. So that leaves us the continued watering and deciding how to tackle the weed issue.
We have done al little of everything in that regards. We have tilled, and that works rather well though slow. It takes a good 3 full days to till 42 rows over the 3 acres. The 12" wide tiller is perfect for each side of the wires, giving us a 24" wide till region. The tiller has one speed though.....slow. We have also done some post emergent spraying, which works OK providing the weeds are 6" or so. Taller weeds just stare back at you and ask what you're doing. There are other "agent orange" sprays that'll kill everything they touch which we don't use. Our vines are not mature enough to risk using it. We also have used the weedwacker to some extent. Be aware of the fact that as the string wips around a 1000 miles an hour it can't differentiate between a weed and a 2 year old vine. It is really heartbreaking to watch a trimmer during a moment of lost attention absolutely wipe out an otherwise healthy vine. After a weedwacking the post emergent spray needs to be applied anyway.....which means hoping the wind dies down in a timely fashion to allow you to mount the backpack sprayer and spot spray between each vine.
I think I have a strategy figured out, and 2010 will be the official test. During February or March (the ground never really freezes here in Virginia) we'll till the rows, and then immediately follow it with a pre-emergent spray. It will be a matter of judgement thereafter as to whether or not more tilling is required, or if we can then stay ahead of it with post-emergent spraying. I really would like to keep the weedwacker out of the formula for no other reason than the aforementioned damage it can cause.
There are some spray systems out there that will allow you to mount a directional wand or boot that directs the spray straight down. This reduces the need to have a windless day for application. Nothing's cheap in this business so I'll have to further take a look at it in the off season.
Time becomes even more valuable next year, in as much as we plan another 3 acre expansion which will require its own set of priorites which will yell for attention against Block 1.
Ken has made progress as well (remember Ken ?). We have an area that sits on the side of the gently sloping hill that we have declared to be our future herb garden and picnic area. It had basically been allowed to go wild. Small evergreens sprouted randomly throughout the area. Poison ivy had found a home in and around the cow fence that was bordering it. We developed a plan to remove the fence, relocate all the small trees to make sort of a wall around the area, kill off the poison ivy (what is God's purpose for poison ivy anyway ?), and start mowing the area. He did all those things and it actually looks civilized now. The designated picnic area will make a quiet hideaway adjacent to the Block 2 grapes, under the trees overlooking the herb garden and the rows of vines.
There is never a shortage of work to be done on a vineyard. It can easily encompass 7 days a week with no end in sight. And when I am down at the vineyard I have to go nonstop to try to make up for lost time; I never really succeed at this. When I drive home I already miss it. My pad of paper is on the passenger's seat next to me to take notes as I remember things. I generate a To Do list for when I get back. All the things that need to be done before I head back south again.
The summer of 2009 has fallen into maintenance mode. We for the most part have gone through the vines the first time for their required pruning. It seemed to take forever but that task is behind us. There will be a second pruning later in the summer to rid of growth we don't need considering next year's plan of attack. And if you're putting energy into shoots that just get cut off any, why keep them ?
We also are doing our weekly mowing to keep grass levels low.We don't want them to grow high enough to go to seed; that's a problem we don't want to add to the list. Jerry is also wrapping up the stapling required to support the wires at the 3rd level. We still need to put the top wires in but there isn't the necessity to get it done this year.....we will need them for next year however, especially for the Nortons. That is a good end of season or winter project. So that leaves us the continued watering and deciding how to tackle the weed issue.
We have done al little of everything in that regards. We have tilled, and that works rather well though slow. It takes a good 3 full days to till 42 rows over the 3 acres. The 12" wide tiller is perfect for each side of the wires, giving us a 24" wide till region. The tiller has one speed though.....slow. We have also done some post emergent spraying, which works OK providing the weeds are 6" or so. Taller weeds just stare back at you and ask what you're doing. There are other "agent orange" sprays that'll kill everything they touch which we don't use. Our vines are not mature enough to risk using it. We also have used the weedwacker to some extent. Be aware of the fact that as the string wips around a 1000 miles an hour it can't differentiate between a weed and a 2 year old vine. It is really heartbreaking to watch a trimmer during a moment of lost attention absolutely wipe out an otherwise healthy vine. After a weedwacking the post emergent spray needs to be applied anyway.....which means hoping the wind dies down in a timely fashion to allow you to mount the backpack sprayer and spot spray between each vine.
I think I have a strategy figured out, and 2010 will be the official test. During February or March (the ground never really freezes here in Virginia) we'll till the rows, and then immediately follow it with a pre-emergent spray. It will be a matter of judgement thereafter as to whether or not more tilling is required, or if we can then stay ahead of it with post-emergent spraying. I really would like to keep the weedwacker out of the formula for no other reason than the aforementioned damage it can cause.
There are some spray systems out there that will allow you to mount a directional wand or boot that directs the spray straight down. This reduces the need to have a windless day for application. Nothing's cheap in this business so I'll have to further take a look at it in the off season.
Time becomes even more valuable next year, in as much as we plan another 3 acre expansion which will require its own set of priorites which will yell for attention against Block 1.
Ken has made progress as well (remember Ken ?). We have an area that sits on the side of the gently sloping hill that we have declared to be our future herb garden and picnic area. It had basically been allowed to go wild. Small evergreens sprouted randomly throughout the area. Poison ivy had found a home in and around the cow fence that was bordering it. We developed a plan to remove the fence, relocate all the small trees to make sort of a wall around the area, kill off the poison ivy (what is God's purpose for poison ivy anyway ?), and start mowing the area. He did all those things and it actually looks civilized now. The designated picnic area will make a quiet hideaway adjacent to the Block 2 grapes, under the trees overlooking the herb garden and the rows of vines.
There is never a shortage of work to be done on a vineyard. It can easily encompass 7 days a week with no end in sight. And when I am down at the vineyard I have to go nonstop to try to make up for lost time; I never really succeed at this. When I drive home I already miss it. My pad of paper is on the passenger's seat next to me to take notes as I remember things. I generate a To Do list for when I get back. All the things that need to be done before I head back south again.
Friday, October 23, 2009
GERIATRICS, THE STUDY OF
The irrigation system had been working perfectly over the last month, and now the new priority was pruning. Jerry had been working diligently though the process is slower than a turtle. Rightly he had been clearing the weeds as he proceeded vine by vine. However, with his concentration to detail and lack of experience, the removal of weeds made progress seem like it was at a standstill. Where I figured he might have gone through the entire vineyard by the time I returned, he was barely 1/4 of the way through. It was time to "bring out the guns", so Diane and I drove down (sorry, Diane took AirTrans, I drove) to help in the pruning.
Pruning is not overly complicated, though if you try to learn it from a book it can be quite perplexing relating the pictures to what actually occurs. Each vine has a temperment of its own, and decides to go in a different direction than what you expect, or its neighbor. A pruner must look at the vine, focus on the final intent of this year's pruning, and then get in there and start chopping no matter how painful it may be.
I call it painful because, as I had previously mentioned, we had let the vines go in year 1. Out of the grafted vine there may have been as many as 5 or 6 shoots that had grown. Many of these had made it easily up to the 3rd wire (54" off the ground) and had a fair amount of leaves to support its growth. But this isn't training a vine to go where it's needed, and unfortunately many of these shoots had to come off in Year 2 to allow the main trunk to grow and thicken.
As you touch each vine and follow the growth pattern, you make cut decisions that just have to be done. After awhile you start apologizing to the vine, maybe if you're tired and slap happy making noises of angst as you snip here, and then there. The pile on the ground can get disturbing, but it's "for the cause". And then you think about next year's strategy, and maybe some pruning should have been done in Year 1 to help alleviate the job required in Year 2.
Pruning is made simple once you can identify the parts of a vine, see what it did from the year before, and have a true understanding of the training process and that year's goal.
The basic parts of a grapevine are, from the ground: the trunk, arms or cordons, canes, canes beget buds, buds beget shoots, shoots beget nodes, and nodes beget tendons, leaves, or fruit. We can split hairs on this a bit, but for now remember that as each year progresses everything gets redefined one step closer to the ground. By that I mean shoots become canes and canes become arms as each year moves forward. Now you may think that with this trading down so to speak you will eventually have a vine that goes the length of a football field, and you wouldn't be far off if it isn't for the yearly pruning to keep the vine on track and trained properly.
Goals for each year vary some based on trellising methods, but for VSP (vertical shoot positioning) the idea in year one is to get the trunk to grow vertically up past the first wire with the real intent to to grow a widespread root system that will support future growth. Year Two, this year, we were trying to get one single vine well past the second wire (our wires are each 18" apart, so the 2nd wire is 36" off the ground). So of the many shoots that grew from last year, we needed to find the cane (last year's shoot is this year's cane) that was the strongest but also went in the general direction we were hoping for. All the others needed to be pruned off.
Next year's goal (Year 3) is to start developing the arms which will go out left and right off the main trunk. I won't go too in depth on next year, but consider that the cane we are taking care of this year will ultimately become an extension of the now trunk, and from this we must develop the arms.
If I haven't lost you yet, remember that Year 2 pruning is basically from the ground up to the first wire. All the work is in the first 18", and the only way I know of to do it is to get right down on the ground and stare at the vine. Up, and down, kneeling, and pruning. Tieing where appropriate to a bamboo stick adjacent to the trunk, sending the vine up to the first and maybe the 2nd wire where tendons can grab once grown. Do this 45 times, the approximate number of vines in each of our rows, and then do it over and over. I thought I was in shape before I started, but after a couple of rows I just couldn't do it the "normal" way. I was in such pain I had to literally crawl to the next vine to proceed. It was torture. And the following day was more of the same. Maybe the joints knew what was coming, but it was a weird combination of knowing they would be exercised to death again or just giving up to the need to move on regardless of the tightening or pain.
Jerry, certainly more agile than me and several inches shorter in height experienced the same thing. It never really got any better. As for Diane, she never complained (I must have been complaining for the 2 of us !). She was also assigned to the Nortons which, even after she pruned them still looked like bushes. They are a very aggressive American variety and would get a different training/trellising method than all the others.
When the week was over we still hadn't gotten over half done. Jerry was now an expert and continued in our absence. Couple this with his mowing duties, and our spray schedule, you can see how he knocked off a half row here, and a half row there. He also had to complete putting staples in to get the vines trained up to the 3rd set of wires. And then there was the weeds, oh those weeds; they will haunt me until we find a system to tackle them.
Pruning is not overly complicated, though if you try to learn it from a book it can be quite perplexing relating the pictures to what actually occurs. Each vine has a temperment of its own, and decides to go in a different direction than what you expect, or its neighbor. A pruner must look at the vine, focus on the final intent of this year's pruning, and then get in there and start chopping no matter how painful it may be.
I call it painful because, as I had previously mentioned, we had let the vines go in year 1. Out of the grafted vine there may have been as many as 5 or 6 shoots that had grown. Many of these had made it easily up to the 3rd wire (54" off the ground) and had a fair amount of leaves to support its growth. But this isn't training a vine to go where it's needed, and unfortunately many of these shoots had to come off in Year 2 to allow the main trunk to grow and thicken.
As you touch each vine and follow the growth pattern, you make cut decisions that just have to be done. After awhile you start apologizing to the vine, maybe if you're tired and slap happy making noises of angst as you snip here, and then there. The pile on the ground can get disturbing, but it's "for the cause". And then you think about next year's strategy, and maybe some pruning should have been done in Year 1 to help alleviate the job required in Year 2.
Pruning is made simple once you can identify the parts of a vine, see what it did from the year before, and have a true understanding of the training process and that year's goal.
The basic parts of a grapevine are, from the ground: the trunk, arms or cordons, canes, canes beget buds, buds beget shoots, shoots beget nodes, and nodes beget tendons, leaves, or fruit. We can split hairs on this a bit, but for now remember that as each year progresses everything gets redefined one step closer to the ground. By that I mean shoots become canes and canes become arms as each year moves forward. Now you may think that with this trading down so to speak you will eventually have a vine that goes the length of a football field, and you wouldn't be far off if it isn't for the yearly pruning to keep the vine on track and trained properly.
Goals for each year vary some based on trellising methods, but for VSP (vertical shoot positioning) the idea in year one is to get the trunk to grow vertically up past the first wire with the real intent to to grow a widespread root system that will support future growth. Year Two, this year, we were trying to get one single vine well past the second wire (our wires are each 18" apart, so the 2nd wire is 36" off the ground). So of the many shoots that grew from last year, we needed to find the cane (last year's shoot is this year's cane) that was the strongest but also went in the general direction we were hoping for. All the others needed to be pruned off.
Next year's goal (Year 3) is to start developing the arms which will go out left and right off the main trunk. I won't go too in depth on next year, but consider that the cane we are taking care of this year will ultimately become an extension of the now trunk, and from this we must develop the arms.
If I haven't lost you yet, remember that Year 2 pruning is basically from the ground up to the first wire. All the work is in the first 18", and the only way I know of to do it is to get right down on the ground and stare at the vine. Up, and down, kneeling, and pruning. Tieing where appropriate to a bamboo stick adjacent to the trunk, sending the vine up to the first and maybe the 2nd wire where tendons can grab once grown. Do this 45 times, the approximate number of vines in each of our rows, and then do it over and over. I thought I was in shape before I started, but after a couple of rows I just couldn't do it the "normal" way. I was in such pain I had to literally crawl to the next vine to proceed. It was torture. And the following day was more of the same. Maybe the joints knew what was coming, but it was a weird combination of knowing they would be exercised to death again or just giving up to the need to move on regardless of the tightening or pain.
Jerry, certainly more agile than me and several inches shorter in height experienced the same thing. It never really got any better. As for Diane, she never complained (I must have been complaining for the 2 of us !). She was also assigned to the Nortons which, even after she pruned them still looked like bushes. They are a very aggressive American variety and would get a different training/trellising method than all the others.
When the week was over we still hadn't gotten over half done. Jerry was now an expert and continued in our absence. Couple this with his mowing duties, and our spray schedule, you can see how he knocked off a half row here, and a half row there. He also had to complete putting staples in to get the vines trained up to the 3rd set of wires. And then there was the weeds, oh those weeds; they will haunt me until we find a system to tackle them.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A GUSHER !
I was a little nervous leaving the vineyard to 2 guys I really didn't know, and whom really didn't understand fully what we were doing at the vineyard in regards to planting, pruning, trellising, weeding etc. etc. I had no choice though, but at the very first chance I jumped back in my truck and headed south to Virginia to see how things were going and to try to get back on track with the irrigation project.
Needlesstosay, that was my mission (once again), to finally get water through the drippers. We had now gotten all the right parts in, and we were ready to go through all the glueing to get them in place and hooked up. I was somewhat confused at how the main plumbing lines were configured around the filter tanks and had to touch base with Scott Wright who consulted on the job. He "straightened me out" so to speak. All the quarter turns were mounted backwards, so the handles were't doing what we thought they were telling us was happening (hey, not me !).
The time had finally come to turn on the pumps. We were like nervous fathers waiting for the nurse to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. I sent Jerry down to the vineyard, and via cellphone we went through the countdown as I was ready to toggle the power to the 2 pumps.
When you first flip a switch you are never really sure what the first noise will sound like. Will it be a low quiet hum or will it seem like nails rattling in a pail ? The first sound was a clunk, and then a churning as it pulled the water up from the creek into the filter tanks. Was it time to turn on the booster pump ? There were no instructions for this, but I had put several pressure gauges in the system so I observed these as they signaled the flow of the water down the lines. Pressure had built so much at the booster pump that the gauge maxed out......there's something that needed to be changed......so that told me to kick that pump into action.
I told Jerry that here we go, and flipped the switch to the booster. How much time to get water down the quarter mile of pipe ? The answer.....less than a minute.
"Jerry, let me know when you see drips."
"OK, I'm watching" responded Jerry.
"WE GOT WATER....WE HAVE A GUSHER !!!!!!"
"A gusher ? What do you mean, a gusher ?" I said.
"It's coming out of the ground !"
Not the response I was ready for, but I decided I'd better turn the system off and drive down and figure out what Jerry was talking about. I was eager and timid at the same time. What was I in store for.....was all the work to this point in jeopardy ? My truck raced down the dirt driveway kicking up dust in its wake, and as I turned off the road and towards the row with all the above-ground filtering and regulating assembly, I saw immediately what he was talking about. There was a major leak at that spot, and in less than a minute's worth of pumping we now had a small lake. The water had shot up through the earth and was shooting water in the air......Old Faithful, vineyard style. Or was it more like the oil that the Beverly Hillbillies saw ?
Could be worse I guess. If there ever was a question on how you would spot a leak in the field, the answer is easy.....look for the lake. It did prove to us that the system worked, and we did have enough pressure getting down to the lines. But now we kicked into repair mode and started to dig out the mud surrounding the 2" pipe that was 24" down. There was alot of dirt / mud you can imagine. And in order for us to get to the pipe and elevate it to some degree so the water would back off allowing us to re-glue the joint, we had to dig quite a big hole. We were full of adrenalin however, and now our mission was clear with a true sense of victory ahead of us. It was one of the most rewarding repair jobs I've partaken in. A few hours later the fix was completed, and we decided to let the glue rest overnight for an early morning christening.
I didn't crack open the bottle of Champagne yet, but I did put it on ice. After nearly a year had gone by working on this project. Thousands of dollars, not to mention all the man hours that had gone into it. It was my number one project for I don't remember how many trips I went down to Virginia for. It was now time.
One of the things we did was place a half dozen buckets throughout the vineyard to check on the dripper flow. One of Ed's concerns was that the far end of the vineyard wouldn't get any water after the water passed all the outlets upstream. Interesting question, and we were ready to see if it turned out to be valid. With pails in place, I once again flipped the switches. First the creek pump, and a minute or so later the booster pump. There was now a familiar hum to the sound of the pumps, with initial gurgling of air in the water lines purging itself out to a nice constant flow. Jerry was down at the vineyard and when he saw water coming out of the drippers located above each plant he called and said it was "a pretty thing". I had to go see for myself, and as I slowly drove down the driveway I reflected on all the work that went into this project, which would be just one of many to come.
It was "a pretty thing". Each of the drippers letting out a slow sream of water, theoretically above each plant. I had thought we had installed drippers rated for 1 gallon an hour. Our test showed they were 1/2 gallon per hour drippers, which was fine as long as we knew. That allowed us to just time how long the pumps would stay on. Ed's concern for the most part was resolved. The most distant drippers were operating similar to those closest to the input line. It is amazing how accurate these little tiny plastic drippers are.....the test drippers all operated within a couple of ounces of the measured gallon mark. Not too shabby.
My next step was to come up with a daily chart for Jerry to fill in. He had to monitor the rain and factor that in with his daily pumping schedule. I came up with a ratio of inches of rain equating to gallons of watering. It was based on guesstimated rootgrowth after one year which for lack of any other direction made sense as we were trying to get 6 gallons of water to each grapevine per year. Next year it would take fewer inches of rain since their root structure would reach out farther.
It was now time to make new priorities, and pruning easily became the top one. Though I jumped into this now massive project, I really didn't get too far before my week once again expired. As Jerry was pruning and Ken was working on special projects, Jerry was doing the weeding as he went along and progress went way slower than I envisioned. Ken helped on some of the weeding to accelerate the pruning, but it seemed like the weeds were growing as fast as he was weeding right behind him.
Don't let up. Don't give in. I knew the weeds had a winning streak going but I wasn't going to give up. They "took out" Ed. There had to be a solution to this problem. I just had to do more reading and find out what everyone else does.....and there was the pruning that needed to get done.....the sap was running and new growth was appearing.
Needlesstosay, that was my mission (once again), to finally get water through the drippers. We had now gotten all the right parts in, and we were ready to go through all the glueing to get them in place and hooked up. I was somewhat confused at how the main plumbing lines were configured around the filter tanks and had to touch base with Scott Wright who consulted on the job. He "straightened me out" so to speak. All the quarter turns were mounted backwards, so the handles were't doing what we thought they were telling us was happening (hey, not me !).
The time had finally come to turn on the pumps. We were like nervous fathers waiting for the nurse to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. I sent Jerry down to the vineyard, and via cellphone we went through the countdown as I was ready to toggle the power to the 2 pumps.
When you first flip a switch you are never really sure what the first noise will sound like. Will it be a low quiet hum or will it seem like nails rattling in a pail ? The first sound was a clunk, and then a churning as it pulled the water up from the creek into the filter tanks. Was it time to turn on the booster pump ? There were no instructions for this, but I had put several pressure gauges in the system so I observed these as they signaled the flow of the water down the lines. Pressure had built so much at the booster pump that the gauge maxed out......there's something that needed to be changed......so that told me to kick that pump into action.
I told Jerry that here we go, and flipped the switch to the booster. How much time to get water down the quarter mile of pipe ? The answer.....less than a minute.
"Jerry, let me know when you see drips."
"OK, I'm watching" responded Jerry.
"WE GOT WATER....WE HAVE A GUSHER !!!!!!"
"A gusher ? What do you mean, a gusher ?" I said.
"It's coming out of the ground !"
Not the response I was ready for, but I decided I'd better turn the system off and drive down and figure out what Jerry was talking about. I was eager and timid at the same time. What was I in store for.....was all the work to this point in jeopardy ? My truck raced down the dirt driveway kicking up dust in its wake, and as I turned off the road and towards the row with all the above-ground filtering and regulating assembly, I saw immediately what he was talking about. There was a major leak at that spot, and in less than a minute's worth of pumping we now had a small lake. The water had shot up through the earth and was shooting water in the air......Old Faithful, vineyard style. Or was it more like the oil that the Beverly Hillbillies saw ?
Could be worse I guess. If there ever was a question on how you would spot a leak in the field, the answer is easy.....look for the lake. It did prove to us that the system worked, and we did have enough pressure getting down to the lines. But now we kicked into repair mode and started to dig out the mud surrounding the 2" pipe that was 24" down. There was alot of dirt / mud you can imagine. And in order for us to get to the pipe and elevate it to some degree so the water would back off allowing us to re-glue the joint, we had to dig quite a big hole. We were full of adrenalin however, and now our mission was clear with a true sense of victory ahead of us. It was one of the most rewarding repair jobs I've partaken in. A few hours later the fix was completed, and we decided to let the glue rest overnight for an early morning christening.
I didn't crack open the bottle of Champagne yet, but I did put it on ice. After nearly a year had gone by working on this project. Thousands of dollars, not to mention all the man hours that had gone into it. It was my number one project for I don't remember how many trips I went down to Virginia for. It was now time.
One of the things we did was place a half dozen buckets throughout the vineyard to check on the dripper flow. One of Ed's concerns was that the far end of the vineyard wouldn't get any water after the water passed all the outlets upstream. Interesting question, and we were ready to see if it turned out to be valid. With pails in place, I once again flipped the switches. First the creek pump, and a minute or so later the booster pump. There was now a familiar hum to the sound of the pumps, with initial gurgling of air in the water lines purging itself out to a nice constant flow. Jerry was down at the vineyard and when he saw water coming out of the drippers located above each plant he called and said it was "a pretty thing". I had to go see for myself, and as I slowly drove down the driveway I reflected on all the work that went into this project, which would be just one of many to come.
It was "a pretty thing". Each of the drippers letting out a slow sream of water, theoretically above each plant. I had thought we had installed drippers rated for 1 gallon an hour. Our test showed they were 1/2 gallon per hour drippers, which was fine as long as we knew. That allowed us to just time how long the pumps would stay on. Ed's concern for the most part was resolved. The most distant drippers were operating similar to those closest to the input line. It is amazing how accurate these little tiny plastic drippers are.....the test drippers all operated within a couple of ounces of the measured gallon mark. Not too shabby.
My next step was to come up with a daily chart for Jerry to fill in. He had to monitor the rain and factor that in with his daily pumping schedule. I came up with a ratio of inches of rain equating to gallons of watering. It was based on guesstimated rootgrowth after one year which for lack of any other direction made sense as we were trying to get 6 gallons of water to each grapevine per year. Next year it would take fewer inches of rain since their root structure would reach out farther.
It was now time to make new priorities, and pruning easily became the top one. Though I jumped into this now massive project, I really didn't get too far before my week once again expired. As Jerry was pruning and Ken was working on special projects, Jerry was doing the weeding as he went along and progress went way slower than I envisioned. Ken helped on some of the weeding to accelerate the pruning, but it seemed like the weeds were growing as fast as he was weeding right behind him.
Don't let up. Don't give in. I knew the weeds had a winning streak going but I wasn't going to give up. They "took out" Ed. There had to be a solution to this problem. I just had to do more reading and find out what everyone else does.....and there was the pruning that needed to get done.....the sap was running and new growth was appearing.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
It was now May when I finally returned to the vineyard. Ed had sent me a disturbing text message a couple of weeks earlier that said to find someone else to take over the vineyard responsibilities. Ed was always a straight shooter with me so there was no question that he meant it. What was the straw that broke Ed's back I'm not really sure. I think it was a combination of things.....Spring was in the air and for a retired fireman maybe he wanted to get in some fishing. He saw the weeds popping up again and we really didn't find a successful plan of attack yet to keep them in order. Ed had a loving interest in all the grapes that he worked so hard to keep alive, and to now fighting more weeds must have felt like a losing battle. Also the vines were growing in all sorts of directions and they needed major pruning in 2009. We had left them alone the previous year so we needed to spend some real time in training them. Because the vines were still small, most of the pruning was close to the ground; this in itself required alot of knee bending and hip turning, both of which would have affected Ed's "war" injuries. And then the irrigation system still needed tweaking.....the parts we were sent to tie the secondary line in with each of the rows didn't work, and we needed to order different ones. I'm sure Ed saw it as a never-ending project.
So I went down to Virginia and started to do some tilling to help out on the weed problem, leaving only the weeds left directly under the wire for another method to conquer. When Ed showed up on that Monday he proceeded to use a Stihl tiller to reach in these tough spots, but by this time they were already 12" tall and easily bound up the tines. An hour of this under his belt pursuaded him to once again bring up his notice to depart, which I having no real say in the manner graciously accepted. Prior to this I had put a classified ad in 2 local weeklys, and I was going to be interviewing possible candidates in the next day or two in hopes of finding another Ed.....someone who could truly take care of the grapes in my absence.
Farm work is hard. It demands your full attention, from sun up to sun down, maybe up to 7 days a week. Some jobs can't be done when it's raining, while others can't be done when it's windy. Being too hot initiates certain action (or inaction), too cold forces priorities to change. And as I said in a previous blog, grapes need your full attention.
On the one hand with unemployment so high you would think I would have received alot of candidates to apply for the job. On the other hand the locals know how hard farm work is, or maybe there was some hesitation on being able to learn what was required in a vineyard. There is quite abit of bull work, but there also is a very methodical approach to the work that needs be done. All in all I interviewed maybe 8 to 10 people, one of which had vineyard experience who played hardball relative to the wage he wanted. I'm not sure who lost in this case, but we couldn't meet eye to eye on terms so he didn't come to work for me.
I ended up hiring 2 guys, Jerry and Ken. Jerry was to be my primary vineyard person, while Ken was to be a backup but primarily assigned to special projects. We had quite a few little things that needed to be done to achieve the ultimate look, and none of these projects really became priority #1 when I went down there, but they still needed to be done nevertheless.
So towards the end of the week I ended up hiring them, with Jerry receiving one day's training before I had to return up North. Ken received no input from me at all, so I put his start date on the back burner until I could return.
Jerry's main assignment was to prune grapes while I was gone. I'm sure he must have been a bit tentative with only a day's worth of training and no one to refer to when he came across a tangled vine. He also did a little weeding by hand using a cultivator (claw) and took over the mowing responsibility. He had his work cut out for him with 2000 sprawling vines to prune, and knowing he was shy on the pruning I wasn't horribly worried about returning to a bunch of sticks sticking out of the earth where full vines had been. And there was also putting some of the finishing touches on the drip system.....I wasn't sure where Ed had left off so Jerry went around and inspected each vine and dripper to assure they were all in place.
So I went down to Virginia and started to do some tilling to help out on the weed problem, leaving only the weeds left directly under the wire for another method to conquer. When Ed showed up on that Monday he proceeded to use a Stihl tiller to reach in these tough spots, but by this time they were already 12" tall and easily bound up the tines. An hour of this under his belt pursuaded him to once again bring up his notice to depart, which I having no real say in the manner graciously accepted. Prior to this I had put a classified ad in 2 local weeklys, and I was going to be interviewing possible candidates in the next day or two in hopes of finding another Ed.....someone who could truly take care of the grapes in my absence.
Farm work is hard. It demands your full attention, from sun up to sun down, maybe up to 7 days a week. Some jobs can't be done when it's raining, while others can't be done when it's windy. Being too hot initiates certain action (or inaction), too cold forces priorities to change. And as I said in a previous blog, grapes need your full attention.
On the one hand with unemployment so high you would think I would have received alot of candidates to apply for the job. On the other hand the locals know how hard farm work is, or maybe there was some hesitation on being able to learn what was required in a vineyard. There is quite abit of bull work, but there also is a very methodical approach to the work that needs be done. All in all I interviewed maybe 8 to 10 people, one of which had vineyard experience who played hardball relative to the wage he wanted. I'm not sure who lost in this case, but we couldn't meet eye to eye on terms so he didn't come to work for me.
I ended up hiring 2 guys, Jerry and Ken. Jerry was to be my primary vineyard person, while Ken was to be a backup but primarily assigned to special projects. We had quite a few little things that needed to be done to achieve the ultimate look, and none of these projects really became priority #1 when I went down there, but they still needed to be done nevertheless.
So towards the end of the week I ended up hiring them, with Jerry receiving one day's training before I had to return up North. Ken received no input from me at all, so I put his start date on the back burner until I could return.
Jerry's main assignment was to prune grapes while I was gone. I'm sure he must have been a bit tentative with only a day's worth of training and no one to refer to when he came across a tangled vine. He also did a little weeding by hand using a cultivator (claw) and took over the mowing responsibility. He had his work cut out for him with 2000 sprawling vines to prune, and knowing he was shy on the pruning I wasn't horribly worried about returning to a bunch of sticks sticking out of the earth where full vines had been. And there was also putting some of the finishing touches on the drip system.....I wasn't sure where Ed had left off so Jerry went around and inspected each vine and dripper to assure they were all in place.
Friday, October 2, 2009
ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY...OR 2
2009 was a year of few setbacks, mostly being progress measured in small steps and renewed optimism. The irrigation project was still front and center as we entered into the early Spring. The electrician had completed his work in the pumphouse, along with wiring everything he could do short of the hooking up of the main line which required the trenching. Ed was as determined as I was to get the system up and running. He still had memories of his watering last year, and he saw the emphasis that had put on getting it all in and I think he just wanted to see it in operation....finally.
We found a rental place in Petersburg that had Ditch Witch trenchers so we rented one for a week's time. I personally didn't have a clue as to how much time was involved in digging all the trenches we had in mind, but a week seemed an adequate amount of time to do the job. Ed picked it up one morning and with it we were off to the races.
First, the trench for the electrical lines. Ed had run one before, so he felt comfortable taking this machine and starting her up. Just aim Ed and he was off. This machine, if you've never seen one in action, resembles a huge chainsaw on wheels. The chain and bar gouging the earth and sending the dirt off to the side with no effort at all. It could do a couple of feet a minute, digging at a depth of 18" to 24". Here we found a use for the now infamous yellow plastic line with all the colored tape markings. Ed needed a guideline to follow, and since you have to walk backward when digging a little guidance to maintain a straight line came in handy. Within a short period of time the first trench was done, whereby I immediately called the electrician and told him we were ready for him to hook-up the complete irrigation system. He would come the next day to finish the job inside of just a few hours.
We found a rental place in Petersburg that had Ditch Witch trenchers so we rented one for a week's time. I personally didn't have a clue as to how much time was involved in digging all the trenches we had in mind, but a week seemed an adequate amount of time to do the job. Ed picked it up one morning and with it we were off to the races.
First, the trench for the electrical lines. Ed had run one before, so he felt comfortable taking this machine and starting her up. Just aim Ed and he was off. This machine, if you've never seen one in action, resembles a huge chainsaw on wheels. The chain and bar gouging the earth and sending the dirt off to the side with no effort at all. It could do a couple of feet a minute, digging at a depth of 18" to 24". Here we found a use for the now infamous yellow plastic line with all the colored tape markings. Ed needed a guideline to follow, and since you have to walk backward when digging a little guidance to maintain a straight line came in handy. Within a short period of time the first trench was done, whereby I immediately called the electrician and told him we were ready for him to hook-up the complete irrigation system. He would come the next day to finish the job inside of just a few hours.
Now we were ready to go from the pump house down to the vineyard. Line of site , along with the yellow line got us to the driveway, and now we had to sort of follow the road. We made our guiderope 15' from the center of the driveway, where the only real issue was missing a telephone line that was buried near the house. The utilities have what is equivalent to our "Dig Safe" up north, and they had come out on one my previous trips to mark its location. When all you need to do is make a trench, progress seemed to advance rapidly. It is just a matter of grinding it out so to speak, and taking a turn down by the vineyard to make a trench that follows the end of the rows. With the power now hooked up, we could almost feel the excitement in the air as we were getting near to the end. Well, not quite. We still had to assemble all the PVC pipe, where the major run was using 2" diameter pipe. But that was later in the week, and lugging all the pipe to its approximate location needed to be done first.
A mile worth of pipe is alot of pipe. Even though we had only a quarter mile run down to the vineyard, we were putting pipe in for the next 2 or 3 year's worth of expansion. The vineyard was defined as Block 1, and along the way we passed by 3 future blocks that would eventually need irrigation. With that in mind, and the complete manifold already part of the pumphouse planning, it was decided to run the major lines to each of these blocks too. In the trench then we initially ran 4 lines, and as we got to the junction for each block we capped the specific pipes off, locating them on the surface with a identifying marker, and then continued on. Once we got beyond Block 2 which was just "upstream" from Block 1, we just had a single pipe to contend with.
As we approached Block 1, we took our bend and surfaced by the first row nearest the driveway. Here we have a final filtering and pressure regulation for the 41 rows of drip lines. Once tied to this, we dropped back underground and proceeded down the end of the rows, putting in tie-ins for all drip lines. The tie-ins popped above the surface at the end of each row, theoretically being protected from mower damage by the end post lines and anchors once in place.
We had come a long way, but once again my week ran out and I had to return to New England with the job unfinished. There was still more work to be done by Ed in the meantime to get the irrigation system finalized. There were a dozen or so drip lines that had to be installed. And more drippers had to be inserted above some of the plants. Spring was with us also, so Ed's responsibilities of mowing were started up again, and we had gotten our replacement vines in that needed to be planted where the dead ones had been identified. I was gone but eager to get back; we were so close to getting the irrigation system in and the weather was due to get warmer. The vines needed water and I was determined not to have Ed carry it in his truck like last year.
A mile worth of pipe is alot of pipe. Even though we had only a quarter mile run down to the vineyard, we were putting pipe in for the next 2 or 3 year's worth of expansion. The vineyard was defined as Block 1, and along the way we passed by 3 future blocks that would eventually need irrigation. With that in mind, and the complete manifold already part of the pumphouse planning, it was decided to run the major lines to each of these blocks too. In the trench then we initially ran 4 lines, and as we got to the junction for each block we capped the specific pipes off, locating them on the surface with a identifying marker, and then continued on. Once we got beyond Block 2 which was just "upstream" from Block 1, we just had a single pipe to contend with.
As we approached Block 1, we took our bend and surfaced by the first row nearest the driveway. Here we have a final filtering and pressure regulation for the 41 rows of drip lines. Once tied to this, we dropped back underground and proceeded down the end of the rows, putting in tie-ins for all drip lines. The tie-ins popped above the surface at the end of each row, theoretically being protected from mower damage by the end post lines and anchors once in place.
We had come a long way, but once again my week ran out and I had to return to New England with the job unfinished. There was still more work to be done by Ed in the meantime to get the irrigation system finalized. There were a dozen or so drip lines that had to be installed. And more drippers had to be inserted above some of the plants. Spring was with us also, so Ed's responsibilities of mowing were started up again, and we had gotten our replacement vines in that needed to be planted where the dead ones had been identified. I was gone but eager to get back; we were so close to getting the irrigation system in and the weather was due to get warmer. The vines needed water and I was determined not to have Ed carry it in his truck like last year.
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