Greg's North Dakota Vineyard

[GreginND]

We've been making progress on the upstairs. It will be a nice space for holding events.

Lots more photos here in my blog post:

http://4elementswinery.com/upstairs-progress/

 

[GreginND]

It was a beautiful sunny day today. I spent the afternoon working on the winery. I recently acquired a free countertop with a sink. It's 130 inches long so plenty of room for working on. But I needed to build a base for it. Fortunately I have a fair amount of spare lumber around the farm. This turned out pretty darn sturdy.

 

[BobR]

Looks real nice!!

 

[grapeman]

That will certainly come in handy Greg. Nice picture of the winery also. Nice approach.

 

[GreginND]

Saturday was planting day. We had twenty five people come out and help us. We managed to get 325 vines in the ground in less than two hours. I am amazed at how many people will work for free and who now feel part of the winery. I let people make a plant marker with their name and mark a vine that they planted. That way every time they come to the vineyard they can visit their vines. Here are a few pictures. I posted many more on my winery blog http://4elementswinery.com/we-now-have-a-vineyard/.

Massive roots on these vines:

Marking the vineyard:

Me planting the first vine:

People digging:

People planting:

The vineyard and barn:

And treasures found digging in the old pasture:

A lot more pictures here: http://4elementswinery.com/we-now-have-a-vineyard/

 

[Pumpkinman]

Very Impressive!

 

[grapeman]

Well it was a long time coming, but now you have the first brood of "children" to watch grow up. It must have gone quickly with that much help. Good luck.

 

[ibglowin]

Congrats on getting them all in the ground! Will you be adding grow tubes?

 

[grapeman]

Mike those peach colored things are grow tubes.

 

[ibglowin]

O jeez, didn't look close enough! They all looked the same color as the piece of what looks like wood trim (molding) behind the wrench......

 

[fivebk]

Greg,

Your vineyard looks great!!! There's nothing like planting your first vines and watching them grow. NOW the real work begins. I wish you good luck good luck with everything.

BOB

 

[GreginND]

Thanks everyone. I am excited to see them grow. I just wish I had my trellis posts in before the planting but our late winter kind of set me back. I hope to get this done in July so I can get a training wire set up.

And we are making progress with the winery finishing. Should have the inside pretty much done in a couple weeks and then my contractor will start on the decks. Trying to keep my bank account in the black but that is difficult.

 

[GreginND]

Well, after a week of solid rain after planting and lots of good sunshine after that, the vines are really starting to leaf out and grow. But so is the common mallow! I've been on the road for a week and a friend just sent me pictures of the vineyard. I'll be out of town for another week yet. Looks like I have a lot of work to do when I get home. Since the soil was all tilled up earlier and should be loose, I'm hoping I can just pull my drag harrow through there and pull up the weeds. I don't really want to spray roundup while my vines are young and tender. Though the grow tubes should protect them.

 

[ibglowin]

Yep, them's so mighty happy weeds! LOL

 

[grapeman]

Wow, I have never seen as much of that stuff growing anywhere before. Impressive! Oh wait, you aren't actually growing it!!!!?!?!??!?!? I hope the vines do as well.

 

[GEM]

Boy can I relate to your weeds. My vines are a year old, on their second year and weeds have continued to be an issue. I think they always will be. Since I am in So. Calif, groundcover is not much of an option due to the high cost of water here. I hope you can till your rows or grow some good groundcover. I for one had a darn hard time getting the weeds killed. I spread a vineyard groundcover this year and still had a million weeds to contend with. The outcome was that I had to Roundup everything. Oh the joy of vineyard management! Anyway, welcome to a great adventure and too your winery too. Gary

 

[BobR]

Wow, I have never seen as much of that stuff growing anywhere before. Impressive! Oh wait, you aren't actually growing it!!!!?!?!??!?!? I hope the vines do as well.

Ooooo, nothing like kicking a guy when he's down.......or in this case, while he is off enjoying a few weeks hitting all of the nice wineries in Michigan!
Hmmm, on second thought, that was a nice jab.

 

[GreginND]

Anyone have a good recipe for mallow wine? Man, I hate this stuff. I didn't realize how many seeds were kicked up when we tilled last year. I think I will have to try to spray it to kill it off and then get grass established ASAP.

 

[grapeman]

This sounds like it is difficult to control http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/hort/news/hortmatt/2004/28hrt04a5.htm so you may have a real problem for a while with it. I have seen it here before but the weeds are sparse. It must have been a plains wildflower type weed and really flourished. Good luck with it Greg.

 

[GreginND]

I got home from my two week trip on Monday evening. And the vineyard was worse than I could have imagined. We had lots of rain while we were gone with a huge 8 inch downpour a few days before. The weeds are growing over the top of the grow tubes and there is standing water in places in the vineyard. The ground is so wet and muddy that I can't get any equipment in to do anything about the weeds. And to top it all off after I took these pictures we got another 4+ inches of heavy rain last night with local flooding. I'm afraid what I'll find when I go out to the vineyard this evening. All I can do is hope the vines survive their wet feet and that things dry out quickly. I have to first mow down the weeds and then till it up again. I may try to spray but it has been too windy for that lately.