I love the springtime – even here in West Texas.
Or, maybe I should say, especially here in West Texas! After such cold, brown winters (compared to lower Alabama), the green of spring is a welcome sight bringing with it hope and a new beginning.
Once the vineyard begins to bud and grow, it seems as though everywhere I look, there is green.
The new grapevines (Petit Verdot and Moscato Giallo) which were planted a couple of weeks ago are in varying stages of budding.
In the field, even with the drought last year and only 4 inches of rain so far this year, we have wildflowers. My favorite are the daisies, yellow black eyed Susans.
In the garden the beans are coming up.
So are the peas.
And, don’t forget the asparagus we planted last week – the little crowns are peaking up through the soil waiting to be covered further. They actually look like miniature asparagus!
Everywhere I look, evidence of new growth and life are around.
What an amazing Creator we have!
As you can see from the picture, the vines are very vigorous in their growth. Not only is the canopy (the green along the vertical cordon wire) growing well but the vine is sending out plenty of growth along the trunk.
While this extra growth is a good sign of the health and output of the vine, we want the vine to focus its energy on canopy growth, fruit production and fruit ripening. To do this, we debud each vine. Each person takes a row and walks down the length of it. Stopping as necessary, we pop off the extra growth buds and shoots along each trunk.
You might wonder what becomes of all the discarded greenery – we bring piles of it home for Buttercup and Emme to eat. They love grape vines!
It is so funny to see it hanging out of their mouths and slowly taken in by their BIG tongues while continuing to chew!
Normally, Buttercup is the one with manners and she mooooos a thank you!
What a life!
What a beautiful day to plant 2 acres of Petit Verdot and 1/3 acre Moscato Giallo. The wind was low and the temperature never reached the 90°F forecasted.
The 3,225 vines arrived via FedEx in a large box.
Marking where the vines are to be planted was done the day before. You can see in the picture below the wheels used on the end of the plow.
The tractor scratches across the area to be planted leaving marks perpendicular to the new vine rows.
These marks are 4 ft apart and will be used to correctly space the new vines in the rows. They also line up with the existing vineyard.
As always, getting everything set up took awhile - namely the GPS on the tractor.
We rented a tractor and planting rig from another grape farmer. As you can see it has a place for 4 people (2 actual seats and 2 places on the metal) to sit while planting. Bundles of vines are placed in the front on either side. Two people sit by the vines and hand them to the two people actually placing the vines in the ground.
This planting rig (really an open platform) has a shank which digs a furrow just ahead of where the people planting sit. A vine is place in the furrow on the perpendicular marks, the two sets of wheels pack dirt back into the furrow covering the roots and then two plows fill the furrow and mound up dirt around the trunk of the vine.
Simultaneously and just ahead of the shank, underground drip irrigation tape is laid in the ground to the side of the vines. This tape is only ~4″ deep. Unlike the tape we put in earlier between the rows of vines, this shallow tape will only be used for a couple of years to water the young vines as they grow.
The vines at this point look like little twigs stuck in the dirt. You can see the blue wax still remains covering most of the graft. In a few weeks, Lord willing, they will begin to bud and bits of green will be visible across the rows.
This year, we are trying something new, maybe I should say “something else” new – grapevine propagation. The vines we purchase are grafted vines. This means that one type of vine is used for the roots (rootstock) and another for the fruit variety to be produced (scion). Normally, a hardy vine whose roots grow fast and strong does not yield the best fruit, if any. Conversely, the grape varieties producing the most desirous fruit, are normally more susceptible to disease and overall not as hardy. There are many different types of rootstock available which the grape grower can choose based on various characteristics. For example, we like those which are nematode resistant, drought tolerant and compatible with our chosen fruit wood.
When we purchase grafted vines from Novavine (our nursery of choice), we pay not only for the vine itself, but also, royalties for the rootstock. Our agreement states that we may not propagate new vines for use other than those we need to replace in our own vineyard.
Over the years, one particular rootstock that we used has turned out to be not as good a fit as we hoped – about a third of those original vines have died since we planted them four years ago. Novavine has helped us and over the years has provided replacements (free or price reduced). This year, we want to replace the dead ourselves (about 600 plants) with a different, stronger rootstock also used in our vineyard. We will let the rootstock grow two years – so it can catch up to the neighbor plants in the row. When its root structure is developed, we’ll graft the fruit wood to it.
You can see in the picture below a rootstock plant (unpruned) that is already growing prolifically. (We’ll try to graft this plant with new fruit wood in the next weeks.)
While we were pruning this year, we kept 12″ – 18″ cuttings of rootstock plants (like that above, yet still dormant). These cuttings were buried into a “nursery row” to keep dormant.
Now as spring is upon us and the vines are budding out, the cuttings were dug up and given a drink in a bucket of water.
You can see the small buds coming out of the side of the twig – they are white with yellow tips.
At the replacement site, we dug out the dead vine and roots and formed a bowl of dirt with a shovel. We rented a water drill (from a neighboring grape grower) and used it to deepen the center while filling it with water.
This farm-made water drill, is just a piece of steel pipe with teeth welded on the end like a drill bit. Water is pumped out the center while you wiggle/twist the handle to cut into the dirt and make the hole.
The rootstock twig is placed in and dirt filled around. We added enough dirt to leave a 6″ or so depression - for watering later in the summer. A 5 ft piece of bamboo is stuck in next to the newly planted twig. As it grows, the twig will be tied to the bamboo for support until it reaches the cordon wire.
Needless to say, everyone is involved and there is a job for everyone!
Everyone, that is, who is anyone, And Bob is not! He just relaxes in the shade, which for the moment, happens to be under the wheelbarrow full of wire clips!
It’s a dog’s life!
In the last 2 weeks there has been an amazing change in the vineyard. From the dormant brown we have moved to the vibrant green of new growth.
New shoots from 8-12 inches are already grabbing onto the wires for support.
Needless to say, we all get excited about the blooms which are soon to be grape clusters. Even our 3 year old knows how to spot them!
Last year’s harvest was not as good as it could have been – extremely cold winter followed by extremely hot summer and punctuated by no rain. But this year is brand new and looks promising with the vines full of new blossoms – we are farmers!
Trying to control our excitement is always a challenge; we must be realistic. There are plenty of thing that could happen between now and an abundant fall harvest. Right now we face the potentials for late frosts (last year our last was May 3) , thunderstorms full of hail and high winds (which can inhibit pollination or even blow the tender shoots right off the vine).
But this is the life that attracted my husband and me from the start … to have daily reminders of our complete dependence upon the Lord!
We will be planting 2 acres of Petit Verdot and 1/3 acre of Moscato Giallo in just a couple of weeks. This will mean an addition of 7 more rows of grapes (each row is 1/3 acre long). To expand the vineyard, the underground drip irrigation system must also be expanded.
In the beginning of February, I posted about the underground drip irrigation tape being put down for the new planting. The water is pumped from the well through pipe to the filter station and then through PVC pipe to the underground drip tape. The PVC pipe carrying the water from the filter station to the tape must now be added.
A backhoe was rented to dig three trenches (one on either end of the vineyard and one in the center) which are 3-4 ft deep and about 67 ft long.
Once the trenches were dug, pipe was cut to the appropriate lengths. As with most things around here, it was a family affair!
Once cut, the pipe was then put into the trench and glued together.
You can see in the picture below, on the sides of the open trench, black tape coming out and connecting down into the PVC pipe.
Now comes the task of filling in the trenches. Since the backhoe was returned, it is time for some muscle building!
While underground drip irrigation provides a much more efficient use of water (almost zero evaporation to the air unlike above ground sprinkler systems), there is one big problem – gophers. They appreciate our breaking up the dirt for them. As they tunnel along, they criss-cross our tapes, gnawing right through as they go! And, as you probably guessed, they leave the water leaks for us to repair. So far we have patched over 20 holes on one half!
The picture above is the view which greets us every morning as we pull up to Tyler and Jessica’s vineyard to help them prune. The rows are 1/4 mile long, which unlike ours, have no center turn road dividing the distance.
But, as you finish a row and look back at it – what a feeling of accomplishment!
Then – - – you start the next one!
You may think that it is a daunting task to prune their 25 acre vineyard after just completing our 20 acres – and, you would be right!
But, with only 2 1/2 acres left, we should finish today – YAHOO!!!!
How, you might ask, were you able to finish pruning 25 acres in 2 weeks? After all, it took us about 3 weeks to prune our 20 acres. There are several reasons:
1. Their vineyard is younger, therefore, the vines are easier to cut and there is less growth to pull out of the wires.
2. The weather has been much warmer – 70F to high 80F as opposed to 34F – 70F.
3. We have 2 extra volunteers who have been great helpers:
- Joe, my brother-in-law from Tennessee will have been here for 2 weeks. He knows though that just because pruning is finished we do not get to take it easy. In fact, there is a list of things to do next! I am sure he will be ready to get home and rest after all this!
- Mary, my sister-in-law from Alabama who dropped Joe off and worked with us for 3 1/2 days. She then continued her travels to Colorado.
Needless to say, everyone is excited about the prospect of having the pruning completed for another year. Next comes planting the new vines, tightening wires, working in the garden …
We finished pruning our 20 acre vineyard last week and began helping our oldest son (Tyler) and his wife (Jessica) prune their 25 acres. They live about 15 minutes from us so we do not have too far to travel. We normally get to the vineyard by 10:00 am, work until lunch and then continue working until dark which is about 8:30 pm. It makes for a long day but we have a lot of fun working together. The time passes quickly with conversation, jokes and movie lines.
In our vineyard, the varieties of grapes (Aglianico, Montepulciano and Roussanne) have relatively late bud break, meaning the buds begin to open later in the season. Tyler and Jessica, on the other hand, have early bud breaking varieties. These include Vermentino, Merlot, Viognier, Trebbiano, Dolcetto and Muscato Giallo.
With the early spring temperatures of mid to high 80′s, most of the early bud breaking varieties have budded. The above picture shows the buds and leaves popping out. While it looks pretty and lets you know that spring is here, it is also dangerous. We are still 4 weeks away from the average last frost for the west Texas area. That means that there is the danger that the buds will be frozen and fruit lost.
Below you can see the same plant after pruning. Pruning is used to shock the plant and slow down its push to put out buds and grow.
We are 1/4 of the way finished pruning in Tyler and Jessica’s vineyard. Hopefully we will finish by the end of next week!
With all the dramatic temperature changes while pruning, we have come to really appreciate the warm days of early spring. This morning, however, was met with damp thick fog – very unusual for west Texas! Looking from the house, you can see in the picture above, the vineyard is not even visible. My first thought was, UGH! – We have to prune in this!
But, this damp fog turns out to be great weather to spray for weeds in the vineyard. In the last couple of days, we have received 7/10 of an inch of rain which brings our total rainfall for this year up to almost 2 inches!
There is a silver lining to every cloud!
This week has been filled with pruning. From the time we finish breakfast until we stop about 8pm for dinner. Actually, we do not stop for dinner – it gets dark around 8pm so we quit work. We are averaging pruning about 1 1/2 acres per day and have about 4 1/2 acres left.
After a long tiring day, a beautiful sunset lifts everyone’s spirits. I think there are two reasons for this. First, each sunset is different and gorgeous. Secondly, it is time to stop pruning and eat!
Several evenings, almost simultaneously, the moon has risen.
It is quite a sight – the sunset to the west and the moon-rise to the east!
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About Me 
God has amazingly blessed me, Dina-Marie, with a wonderful husband and 10 beautiful children. Moving from our "secure" life in Alabama to the "exciting" life of starting a vineyard in west Texas has been challenging to say the least. I have had the opportunity to take a crash course in frugal living and become a real farm girl - complete with milk cow and chickens. I have learned the importance of health from the inside out, "traditional" cooking and cod liver oil!
I hope to encourage you to make the most of where you are and what you have. |
