Hello All,
As the title says, for me this is a perfect new hobby. I have been a wine drinker but never ever thought of growing or making my own wine. Since I live in Sacramento, back from a yet one more short but great trip to Napa, in the middle of pandemic (which included a complimentary bottle of wine with the hotel room) the light bulb went off finally. I am stuck at home and UC Davis is practically my alma mater, why not learn how to grow/make wine?. The growing of grapes idea would come later because I am a suburban homeowner, not a acreage owning farmer. Slowly but surely though fueled by so much incredible info available all over the internet the idea is becoming real.
I was lucky very early on, I came across the link to the book from "Vines to Wines" by Jeff Cox and once the book came in, I knew I was going to do this. A couple of friends were more enthused about the idea than me, doubtless dreaming drinking the wine already.
But the problem of land means I have to start very small, that means a trapezoidal bit of backyard real estate sandwiched between the back and side fence and the dog run. Measuring all of 200 sq ft of hitherto unused soil covered in clumps of grass and weed kept alive by uneven watering over the years by an unmotivated sprinkler system. That's all the land I allowed to have, since the said dog run is already monopolized by my wife's planter boxes for veges.
So I have spent all of Oct digging about a foot of top soil out - mostly dead (no earthworms for example) and have planted Diakon Radishes to amend. An initial test for NPK revealed mostly depleted soil, so added the required organic compounds. A month later, the Daikons have established themselves reasonably and the plan is not harvest them but 'till' them back into the soil (before seed) to lock in the N2 and hopefully have deep holes in soil due to their "bio drilling".
Now for the bit of serendipity - I have 6 holes dug out about 18'' deep for my endposts - was planning to plant those later in the month. More on that later. Over the weekend we got overdue rain here in Sac. It rained pretty much all of Sat night thru Sunday eve. And as I am doing every 2 hours of my awake life these days, I checked on the plants and none the holes had much water no more than a inch of rain water. Which made me happy -good draining soil I was thinking to myself. And then I came to a corner hole and it was filled to the top, this hole was. I came back once the rain had stopped to time this particular hole and it took a long time over 16 hours to drain - in fact there is still water in there now. So that leads me to think that I could DIY a tile drain at that part of the soil to ensure a modicum of water removal. I may not be able to go 4 feet deep - I dont have the tool or resources to that but at least a 18". I am thankful, I spotted this now as I also think perhaps my soil is not the greatest being mostly clay but at least I could mitigate the water issue now rather than find out after planting.
So there you have it. I am planning to plant a spacing of 6 ft by 5 ft for a total of 9 or 10 vines in 3 rows. Hi density planting. The goal is to come as close to 5 gallons of finished wine augmented by purchase of juice if required. I am partial to Red Vinifera like Cab Sav but again I dont have any experience in this area. I am learning to appreciate wine only after I landed in US as a student - actually much later since I was a poor Indian grad student (PIG) in short. I would therefore be glad for any input on yield that I can get for the Cab or should I go with mix of vines always keeping in mind I would like to get to 5 gallons of finished product (from mature wines and on a average year). Important since I have not made any planting decisions yet.
So thanks for reading and looking forward to any and all feedback.
-Best
As the title says, for me this is a perfect new hobby. I have been a wine drinker but never ever thought of growing or making my own wine. Since I live in Sacramento, back from a yet one more short but great trip to Napa, in the middle of pandemic (which included a complimentary bottle of wine with the hotel room) the light bulb went off finally. I am stuck at home and UC Davis is practically my alma mater, why not learn how to grow/make wine?. The growing of grapes idea would come later because I am a suburban homeowner, not a acreage owning farmer. Slowly but surely though fueled by so much incredible info available all over the internet the idea is becoming real.
I was lucky very early on, I came across the link to the book from "Vines to Wines" by Jeff Cox and once the book came in, I knew I was going to do this. A couple of friends were more enthused about the idea than me, doubtless dreaming drinking the wine already.
But the problem of land means I have to start very small, that means a trapezoidal bit of backyard real estate sandwiched between the back and side fence and the dog run. Measuring all of 200 sq ft of hitherto unused soil covered in clumps of grass and weed kept alive by uneven watering over the years by an unmotivated sprinkler system. That's all the land I allowed to have, since the said dog run is already monopolized by my wife's planter boxes for veges.
So I have spent all of Oct digging about a foot of top soil out - mostly dead (no earthworms for example) and have planted Diakon Radishes to amend. An initial test for NPK revealed mostly depleted soil, so added the required organic compounds. A month later, the Daikons have established themselves reasonably and the plan is not harvest them but 'till' them back into the soil (before seed) to lock in the N2 and hopefully have deep holes in soil due to their "bio drilling".
Now for the bit of serendipity - I have 6 holes dug out about 18'' deep for my endposts - was planning to plant those later in the month. More on that later. Over the weekend we got overdue rain here in Sac. It rained pretty much all of Sat night thru Sunday eve. And as I am doing every 2 hours of my awake life these days, I checked on the plants and none the holes had much water no more than a inch of rain water. Which made me happy -good draining soil I was thinking to myself. And then I came to a corner hole and it was filled to the top, this hole was. I came back once the rain had stopped to time this particular hole and it took a long time over 16 hours to drain - in fact there is still water in there now. So that leads me to think that I could DIY a tile drain at that part of the soil to ensure a modicum of water removal. I may not be able to go 4 feet deep - I dont have the tool or resources to that but at least a 18". I am thankful, I spotted this now as I also think perhaps my soil is not the greatest being mostly clay but at least I could mitigate the water issue now rather than find out after planting.
So there you have it. I am planning to plant a spacing of 6 ft by 5 ft for a total of 9 or 10 vines in 3 rows. Hi density planting. The goal is to come as close to 5 gallons of finished wine augmented by purchase of juice if required. I am partial to Red Vinifera like Cab Sav but again I dont have any experience in this area. I am learning to appreciate wine only after I landed in US as a student - actually much later since I was a poor Indian grad student (PIG) in short. I would therefore be glad for any input on yield that I can get for the Cab or should I go with mix of vines always keeping in mind I would like to get to 5 gallons of finished product (from mature wines and on a average year). Important since I have not made any planting decisions yet.
So thanks for reading and looking forward to any and all feedback.
-Best
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