Help with small vineyard planning

[tmcfadden932]

I know of a winery owner/grower that was into explosives when he was a youngster back in the 1960s'. He took that knowledge, along with his share of selling a name winery to a national beverage corporation, and put in a vineyard on side of a mountain in Napa, Ca. He would fracture the rock to get the posts and vines where he wanted. He "dug" his wine cave/cellar into the mountain this way too.

 

[ChuckD]

I know of a winery owner/grower that was into explosives when he was a youngster back in the 1960s'. He took that knowledge, along with his share of selling a name winery to a national beverage corporation, and put in a vineyard on side of a mountain in Napa, Ca. He would fracture the rock to get the posts and vines where he wanted. He "dug" his wine cave/cellar into the mountain this way too.

Coooool! I want to play with explosives
And I have plans drawn up for a full-on wine cave/hobbit house! It will probably never get done but never say never!

 

[ChuckD]

Unfortunately they pop back up. The "dig down 6 inches" worked -- the areas my neighbor did have yet to pop another rock.

I think if I removed all the rocks from the top 6” I’d only have 4” of soil left.

 

[ChuckD]

So two days of pulling roots and picking rocks . Now just one more disking and then they will drag it flat with the culti-mulcher.

this is the haul from about 0.2 acres on the hill. It took about 8 trips with the garden cart. Each load got a little bigger until this happened

Of course it was a full load so I had to unload the rocks into my firewood sled and drag them away. Luckily it was the last load on the hill. The rest were close enough to the swamp to be air-mailed directly. I’m hoping I can seed the grass and start laying out the rows this weekend .

 

[winemaker81]

I think if I removed all the rocks from the top 6” I’d only have 4” of soil left.

Other than climate, it appears that Wisconsin and North Carolina have a lot in common!

 

[ChuckD]

Other than climate, it appears that Wisconsin and North Carolina have a lot in common!

Up here it’s wherever the glaciers decided to leave them. 8 miles northwest you couldn’t find a bucket of rocks in a 100 acre field. I just got lucky I guess

 

[ChuckD]

107 piles of rock and sod clumps!

It took about 7 hours to rake them
Up. Today we hauled away about 75% of them and seeded the whole area. I need to finish hauling the rest away tomorrow and roll the seed down. We have a big rain forecast for Tuesday night and I still want to get my apples and raspberries planted


time for wine!

 

[GSMChris]

It’s looking great! I can really see the sweat equity out there!

 

[TurkeyHollow]

this is the haul from about 0.2 acres on the hill. It took about 8 trips with the garden cart. Each load got a little bigger until this happened
View attachment 88467

I'm no mechanic but you'll want to keep that at low speeds on the highway - it may vibrate a bit!
I feel for you. I'm in New England where we have rocks...

...and stumps...

But it's all good fun!

 

[ChuckD]

I seeded and rolled the site yesterday. Today I laid out the perimeter fence and marked the ends of all the rows with fiberglass driveway markers.

I thought I would have time to plant my apple trees but the layout took a lot longer than I thought. It’s not easy laying out 13 parallel lines in an irregular space!

It looks very close to the original plan but skewed a little more E-W. I ended up with room for 134 vines with a 10x7 spacing. Overall I am really happy with the space and can’t wait to start planting. My Petite Pearl are arriving Thursday and the Marquette next week.

 

[TurkeyHollow]

I seeded and rolled the site yesterday. Today I laid out the perimeter fence and marked the ends of all the rows with fiberglass driveway markers.
View attachment 88802
I thought I would have time to plant my apple trees but the layout took a lot longer than I thought. It’s not easy laying out 13 parallel lines in an irregular space!

It looks very close to the original plan but skewed a little more E-W. I ended up with room for 134 vines with a 10x7 spacing. Overall I am really happy with the space and can’t wait to start planting. My Petite Pearl are arriving Thursday and the Marquette next week.

Looks great! Nothing more exciting than seeing it all planted & trellised. For me, the clearing and land prep was the worst. I hope you have better luck positioning your end posts where no boulders exist. My first patch I removed all the boulders (some as big as a Mini Cooper). That took me about 3 years. I soon figured out that the vines don't care - as long as there's enough soil, nutrients & water, they're happy. I'm still expanding but it won't be as pretty as yours when you're finished. It looks you're doing a great job!

 

[GSMChris]

I seeded and rolled the site yesterday. Today I laid out the perimeter fence and marked the ends of all the rows with fiberglass driveway markers.
View attachment 88802
I thought I would have time to plant my apple trees but the layout took a lot longer than I thought. It’s not easy laying out 13 parallel lines in an irregular space!

It looks very close to the original plan but skewed a little more E-W. I ended up with room for 134 vines with a 10x7 spacing. Overall I am really happy with the space and can’t wait to start planting. My Petite Pearl are arriving Thursday and the Marquette next week.

That looks fantastic! I feel your pain with the irregular space - makes things ever so challenging!

 

[ChuckD]

Looks great! Nothing more exciting than seeing it all planted & trellised. For me, the clearing and land prep was the worst. I hope you have better luck positioning your end posts where no boulders exist. My first patch I removed all the boulders (some as big as a Mini Cooper). That took me about 3 years. I soon figured out that the vines don't care - as long as there's enough soil, nutrients & water, they're happy. I'm still expanding but it won't be as pretty as yours when you're finished. It looks you're doing a great job!

I’m glad I don’t have boulders that size! Looking at all the stone piles around here we get the occasional large (wheel barrow size) erratic but most is potato to bread loaf sized stone, and lots of it! I’ll get the end posts where I need them but you often end up with a pretty large hole by the time you fish out all the rock. I still haven’t decided if I want leaning end posts with anchors or a double braced-post setup. The latter is more work but looks better and is easier to mow around.

 

[ChuckD]

Today after work I planted my raspberries, a black currant, and five vines I bought in a table-grape mix (Mars, Somerset, and three Brianna). We had two inches of rain in the last 24 hours so the ground was saturated… and it was still misting as I planted so it was like playing in the mud. I don’t like planting in those conditions but the plants have been sitting in my cellar for two weeks and some of them were starting to sprout.

25 Petite Pearl arrived today and my plan is to get them, along with six apple trees, planted this weekend. The 25 Marquette are scheduled to ship next week. unfortunately the grow tubes are shipping with the Marquette. I’m going to pick up some deer repellent spray tomorrow to hold me over.

It’s finally all coming together!!!!!

 

[ChuckD]

DONE!

I planted 25 Marquette and 10 more asparagus plants today. You may have heard the groaning when I hoisted my bloated carcass up from my knees for the 35th time today

The grand total for 2022 is 25 Marquette, 26 Petite Pearl, 3 Brianna, two seedless table grapes, 15 raspberries, one red currant, 6 apple trees, 15 asparagus plants, and 3 rhubarb plants.

here is one of the pearls… nine days in the ground!

next year I’m thinking another dozen Brianna and another 25 red.

 

[Vern]

Nice, and now the fun begins.

 

[ChuckD]

High on the list is a bench placed right where that first picture was taken so My wife and I can visually enjoy the fruits of our labor… until the real fruits arrive. They will have built in wine glass holders

 

[wood1954]

With 75 reds you’ll be making a lot of wine. I wish you lots of luck.

 

[ChuckD]

With 75 reds you’ll be making a lot of wine. I wish you lots of luck.

Yep. Those 5-gallon carboys are not going to cut it anymore. I guess I’ll be looking to scale up in a few years.

 

[VinesnBines]

Once they start leafing out, the race is on. I don’t have a bench but I do stop now and then and admire the vines.

Now and then there is a surprise in the vines.