Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[bilbo-in-maine]

Frontenac starting blossoms here.

 

[Wade E]

Funny, I cant see any in the picture you posted.

 

[grapeman]

Wade, the grape blossomswould be a little plain after all of NW's flower pictures. They look like fuzzy grape stems. They have about the most plain blooms in nature.


Here is one from somewhere else.

Edited by: appleman

 

[grapeman]

*WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING*


The Japanese Beetles have arrived at the vineyard. I was walking the rows this evening and found the first ugly critter of the year. I need to spray in a few days so I will keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get too bad before then.


Yesterday there were a few vines planted this year almost to the top of the 30" grow tubes and today there are a couple dozen above the top. The winner of the speed trial is - Corot Noir, one of the Cornell named varieties from last year(planted less than 4 weeks ago).

 

[jobe05]

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The Japanese Beetles have arrived at the vineyard. I was walking the rows this evening and found the first ugly critter of the year. I need to spray in a few days so I will keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get too bad before then.

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Wow.... I was doing the RSS feed ad thougt FVW turned into the Appleman forum, all your post showed up all in a row.


The beetles just showed up here also. It's funny how around the country plants seem to get on track. NW's apples and other fruit trees seem to be catching up and surpassing what ours are doing here in NC.

 

[OilnH2O]

Yeah- It was almost like "Groundhog Day" -- I thought "HEY! I've seen these all before!"

But it is nice to see the progression.

 

[NorthernWinos]

I was wondering what was going on...I thought I had a virus...


Seriously...it's like a diary and good to see things progressing like that.

 

[grapeman]

That is the intention guys. I thought it would be handy to show the progression from initial planting to making some wine from them either this fall or next. That way people browsing the forum wanting to see something like that and contemplating planting a vineyard can follow along without sorting throughmany pages of content. I will initially post here as I go along and every once in a while copy to the other post to keep it updated. If it causes too many problemsor confusion, I will get rid of it. I hope a few people at least find it helpful.

 

[rgecaprock]

Appleman,


I'm very impressed with everything you do!!!


Ramona

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

Appleman, a friend of mine from work planted some vines this spring,I believe he is definitely watching your progress after I showed him this site and your post. Truly a wealth of info for anyone considering growing some grapes.

 

[grapeman]

Here are some updated pictures showing the progress of things at the vineyard. I dug in the rest of the 50 posts I had to set and installed the earth anchors(holds the wires at the row ends). I also hoed some of the weeds out again and trained some more with the vines- a never ending job.


First a few before and later pictures. The before picutes July 8, 2006 The later pictures are showing the dates.

The same area-LaCrosse white grapes

St. Pepin

Same area last year






For everybodied worried I killed the vine I cut off by accident-he is growing back

I'll post more later. I can only put in 2 or 3 at a time without losing them. I have some of grapes, different training and catch wires.Edited by: appleman

 

[Wade E]

Wow Appleman, they look great!

 

[NorthernWinos]

You've sure been busy and everything is showing your loving care.

 

[Joanie]

Wow!!! Amazing!!!

How tall are your posts now that they're in the ground?

 

[Wade E]

Whats that delapitated structure in the background of the 5th picture, an old barn?

 

[grapeman]

Joan the posts are almost 6 feet out of the ground. The red box is the fruiting wire at 32 inches high and the two blue boxes are catch wires about 12-14 inches each higher. The green box at the top is a bird netting wire. This is for Verticle Shoot Positioning (VSP). The variety is Chardonel and I am keeping them a little low for the cordons to develop stronger. I will be doing quite a few varieties this way and will add the catch wires before next year.






Wade, yes that is an old hay barn. The roof collapsed under a few spring snows about 5 years ago in late March. We had over six feet of snow in about 4 days time. I couldn't get out there to shovel it off, the snow was over my head. The rafters had held up fine for many years, but just couldn't take the snow. I am little by little salvaging the barn boards, but have a long ways to go.Edited by: appleman

 

[grapeman]

Joan here are some Frontenac I am fruiting to slow down.

Glenora Seedless - Training with multiple shoots and some grapes.

Wade since you noticed the barn here is an elderberry growing in the side of it.

Edited by: appleman

 

[Joanie]

Is the Frontenac in its second year?

 

[NorthernWinos]

Appleman...are your Elderberries the wild red variety???

 

[OilnH2O]

Rich, looks like some pic's have a catch wire lower -- around 12-18 inches (hard to tell scale) while you said in the "red box" your lowest wire was 32 inches... are you using different wire heights for different varieties?