Well I spent the day cleaning out the weeds from the vineyard today. I ran through the rows of last years vines and hoed out all the weeds in the row strip - 9 rows 250 feet long. 6 of them I had to do completely with the hoe, but the rest I use the Troy-bilt tiller to do figure 8s in. That gets 90 percent of the weeds in the row. I also had to do another 8 row I had planted this year with the tiller. The ragweed sure liked the rain and warm weather of this week and came up pretty thick. Best to get it while it's small. 6 hours later I was pretty well done with the hoeing and tilling. I then run the tractor with small harrow through between the rows to knock out the rest of the weeds and grass coming up. It sure looked nice when I finished up, but alas it started to rain again. I want to get some pictures to show everybody what its looking like. The vines are growing well, even the newly planted ones are starting to leaf out after only a week in the ground.
A lot of the vines from last year are putting out a lot of growth down low and the buds on the vine higher got eaten badly by the Flea bettles. I will have to prune back some more and thin out some of the bottom growth.
Next on the agenda- Trellising for the vines planted last year from cuttings. By the way, the vines I left in the little nursery (and planted this spring)are almost the same size now as the ones I was able to get big enough early enough last year to plant out in the vineyard. Sorry for no pics- maybe tomorrow after work.
Edited by: Northern Winos 
