Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[Waldo]

Looks awesome! Reminds me I need to get out and prune my apple trees.

Reminds me......... I need to eat my prunes this morning

Congrats on the grant buddy

 

[peaches9324]

appleman my nephew brought outsome post this morning and asked how many I would need. I didn't have an answer for him cuz I wasn't sure of the spaceing b/t post. I noticed in your pics you have at least 2 vines planted b/t post is that correct? I'm sure we had went over this befor but could not find the info I was in search of.How far apartare your post and how many vines b/t them? and again thank you!

 

[grapeman]

I put either 3 or 4 vines between posts. If they are closer spacing go with4 if a bit farther use 3. You want the posts 20-25 feet between them. I also use bamboo stakes at each vine for training to get them a bit straighter until they get some size to them- a bit of lead in the pencil of sorts.


I need to go pick up the 300 posts I have for the vines I planted last year. I never got them in last year and relied on the bamboo alone. I may need a bit more than that, but it will get me going. A logger is doing up 300 white cedar for me and he called this AM to say tomorrow at noon would be good. They are about one third the price of manufactured posts so with this many, I opted for frugality.

 

[xanxer82]

nicely done!

 

[peaches9324]

Richard lucky you!,theres nothing wrong with being frugal! Unless of course their not treated like the post my nephew had brought to me. The one good thing is they are pine and free. Even though they are free to me I would of much rather go and buy the treated wood. He assures me that they will outlast my life. What is it that I can purchase to treat the lumber with? So I can possibly apply it without his knowledge - don't want to affend him in any way cuz hedoes havea big heart! And I know he is planning on clamping the wire instead of running it threw the posts. And I'm a perfectionest when it comes to one of my projects. I'm a do it right the first time kinda gal So if you would be so kind as into explaining the contructing of the wire to the post and theIMPORTANCE of it so that I could possibly print it out and show it to him I would be SSSSSO thankful and appreciate it.The last thing I want is droopy wire!
and thank you once again
and my sincere appologies for being a pain in the forum!

thank you

 

[grapeman]

I got over today and picked up half my posts. I have a 8 x 24 foot trailer I used to haul 12 - 20 bushel bins of apples on, which is about 5 tons of apples. The guy loaded 150 posts on and the load was from end to end and about 3-4 feet high. The tires were really squatted down, more so than the 5 tons of apples would make it. They loaded really easy with the excavator and pallet tines, but unloading took an hour and a half. I unloaded them in my new vineyard a couple hundred yards awaythrough the woods. I spread them into 6 piles, three on each side. There are 20 rows to do. I will go get the rest in a few days. They will go in the main vineyard plot where there will be 12 rows of 36 vines each.






The posts are generally pretty nice. They do have the bark on, which I will peel as I can. They average well over 6 inches on the small end, with a number of them in the 9-10 inch range. They should outlast me also since I have a limited lifespan - well they do too, but I figure I will be rotted away before they are.

Yes I will be taking pictures and we will be filming some videos of putting the trellising in in a month or so for the local growers association. It will be going on our website for Lake Champlain Wines.This weekend- pruning! We are looking at filming a number of subjects to help beginning growers. Stay tuned.

 

[peaches9324]

you know I'll be in the audiance! can't wait!

 

[grapeman]

It was an interesting day today at the vineyard.. Like I said a couple days ago, we held a Pruning Workshop today. We sparsely advertised the event in the local paper in the event calendar and on public radio. It was held from 2:00 until about 4:00 and then we had a wine tasting until about 6:00 PM. It was cold but sunny and 20 degrees more would have been very nice, but we got through it.


Overall we thought it went very well with about 60 people attending. We covered a lot of subject matter and showed a wide variety of pruning for the subject matter. We had several video cameras taping the procedings and hope to put together the video content for our website and forum. The local paper had a reporter in attendance and he took a lot of video and stills during it. It should be good publicity for our growers association.
Andy Farmer was there from Northeastern Vine Supply. I invited him since we had a number of new and potential growers attending.


We tried quite a few wines which seemed to be well received by all. This was the first tasting of cold hardy varieties by many of the attendees and they seemed to enjoy them. It was gratifying that my Leon Millot that placed with Bronze last year (as a semi-finished wine at the time) was enjoyed by many as being better than the fancy Pinot Noir brought by a guest. As always everybody wanted to buy some St. Pepin, which of course I can't sell. I gave a few bottles out as good will and publicity.


Andy brought a bottle of Brianna from a vineyard in Nebraska. I was glad to try that since I have never had it before. I think it will be a great addition to the eventual lineup.


I wish I had a couple pictures to post, but I was too busy working with the demo to take many. I will post a link to the video when we get it put together.

 

[AlFulchino]

sounds great!

 

[Wade E]

Sounds very productive my friend.

 

[grapeman]

Visitors to the Vineyard this AM.

My sister called this AM about 7 and told my wife she had three moose in her back dooryard which is between my two vineyards. I looked out the window and sure as sh*take mushrooms there were three moose! I figure a cow and two calves from last year by the size. They did a loop almost to the road and ran back behind the house. I looked a minute later out the back door and there was the cow standing next to my driveway about 50 feet from the garage.

I went to the office and grabbed the camcorder, but couldn't get them out of the woods to shoot with the cam. I went down a while later into the vineyard and sure enough, they had gone around the edge of the vineyard and into the woods. Holy crappes batman. I hope they don't take up residency. Just so you know I am telling the truth here, I got a few pictures of the tracks. The big one has tracks almost as long as my shoe and wider.

 

[grapeman]

One more small step on the long sidewalk to my "Bonded Winery".


Today I went and picked up two bonds to turn in. One goes to the TTB and the other to NYS. They are the Bonds in the "Bonded Winery", so some progress is being made!

More work is continuing behind the scenes. Wish me luck that I will be in operation this summer!

 

[Wade E]

All the luck and best wishes here buddy.

 

[AlFulchino]

you will likely be licensed by the feds in 60 days if you are already at the bond stage...90 at the worst

 

[grapeman]

That's what I am hoping Al.

 

[AlFulchino]

have no fear....it appears going into it all that it is really a bigger issue than it all really turns out to be....in the end...if all the paper work is filled out properly they WANT you licensed because it means tax money

i found that went i went thru it that the biggest obstacle in my way was me...thinking it was going to be tough.....worrying myself over nothing

by the way we had Andy Farmer and his wife down our way this past week pruning and taking cuttings from our operation for his operation....good people...and we got to sit down and break bread and enjoy some wine together...they are also both hard workers

 

[grapeman]

Andy said he had two more vineyards to go help prune this year when he was over a couple weeks ago. I hope you were able to get a bunch done. The weather has taken a turn for the much worse this week. Good luck finishing it up.

 

[AlFulchino]

12 rows done......34 to go ....ugh and buds are pushing a tad

 

[grapeman]

I'm just seeing a bit of a push here on the buds- the slightest tinge of green and a bit of swell. At least you have 12 down! The rest will go one at a time until you are done!

 

[grapeman]

Al with his mention of the .com visitor reminded me that in our group- we have a .com representative for wine. Todd Trzaskos is a member of our Lake Champlain Grape Grower's Association or Lake Champlain Wines for short. He runs Vermont Wine Media.com. and reviews and reports on wine and grape growing. He samples wines from all over the world and sits down to dinner from time to time with expert winemakers.


Here is a report he did on our Pruning workshop last month. Look around the site. I think he does a pretty decent job.


http://www.vtwinemedia.com/vt_wine_press/?p=567







This morning I went out and finished up pre-budbreak weed control for perennials. I used the Solo Backpack sprayer for applying Roundup wannabe on the small vines so I could control the spray pattern better. I had sprayed some of them yesterday and the larger vines with the spot sprayer on a cart behind the lawn tractor.


Within the next week I will apply Matrix. That is a broad spectrum weed killer safe for grapes. I could have sprayed it at the same time as the Roundup, but since you use such a small amount, I wanted to see how much water volume it took the spray with those sprayers. The spray rate is 4 ounces per acre- full acre, so that is about 3 acres of banded application under the vines only (3 foot band in 9 feet). It is a good thing it doesn't take a lot, because the stuff costs $300 for 15 ounces!