Glad to say I’ve officially woken from my annual mid-winter hibernation. When it gets really cold ( for non-Minnesotans that would be -25f or a string of days where the high doesn’t get above zero) and the days are short up here in Minnesota, a person just doesn’t feel like doing much. But now that it’s mid-February and the days are getting longer and sun is gaining strength, you can’t help but jump forward a couple months and think about when the average daily highs will be in the 50’s!
That said, I’ve begun to ruminate on my plans for this spring. One of the first things on the agenda will be pruning sometime around mid-March. Then I’ll be preparing for starting a few new plants – likely more Prairie Star, Frontenac and Marquette. Sometime in that same time frame, I need to rack two batches of wine that I started last fall – one Frontenac and one Valiant. I’ll be posting more about my plans for which vines will go where in the coming days.
With last night’s heavy frost in my area, I decided to harvest the Frontenac and Prairie Star grapes this morning. The temps were in the upper 20s (F). All told, I picked 22 lbs of Frontenac and 8 lbs of Prairie Star grapes (one vine). Earlier I had picked 14 lbs of Valiant grapes. I spent some time before work sorting, crushing and sulfiting. The Frontenac went into my larger primary and the Prairie Star into a smaller backup primary. I covered the primaries and will let them sit until this evening.
Categories: Grape Growing, Vineyard Phenology, Winemaking Tags: campden, frontenac, grapevine, harvest, must, Prairie Star, sulfite, valiant, Wine, Winemaking
Just in from a some time spent in the vineyard…
The vines are all doing great. Our weather has been unseasonably cool and very dry, so I’ve been watering the vines pretty regularly. Tonight, I fertilized the newer vines with a miracle-gro type of liquid fertilizer. The new vines and recovering vines are doing great. The two new Prairie Star vines are just past the bottom wire and have a good shot at getting to the top wire this season.
The recovering vines like the Foch are doing extremely well. Most are near or above the top wire. One of them that I trimmed to 2 buds this spring has already be cut off about one foot above the top wire and is working on building canes for next season! It’s HUGE!
The Sabrevois are making progress…since I first noticed them about a month ago as teeny-tiny shoots, they are all near 1 foot tall. My hope is to get them healthy enough by this fall that they over-winter well and can continue the comeback next season.
The Frontenac vines look great with alot of fruit. The Valiant vine is also going well. Last week I noticed some signs of disease on it so I applied a liquid fungus treatment that seems have to done the trick.
Categories: Grape Growing, Vineyard Phenology Tags: backyard, fertilizer, foch, foliar, frontenac, grapevine, marquette, Prairie Star, sabrevois, valiant, vineyard
When I’m stuck in the house on a rainy day with nothing to do, it never fails that I pickup a book to read. Lately, I’ve been re-reading Lon Rombough’s The Grape Grower. I’m amazed by how much I’ve learned since I first bought this book. Reading it now, I’m thinking ‘oh yeah, it makes sense now’. If you don’t own this book or if you are looking for a great reference for growing grapes anywhere, this is it. Click on the image below to find out more about the book.
I’m always amazed each year when the summer temperatures start heating up into the low 80’s (and higher). It’s during these days, that grapevines grow like crazy. Not unlike the rates of growth seen in cornfields when you can actually ‘hear’ the corn grow. The thing is, the grapevines grow even faster than corn does in this nice weather.
In the past week, we’ve had multiple episodes of soaking rain followed by warm and muggy weather. I’m overdue for posting photo updates. Some of the vines have put on 2-3 feet of growth since last Sunday.