Monday, April 26, 2010

2010 Vineyard Update

When our 2009 Harvest was over last August many of us left the vineyard that day and haven't been back until Spring 2010. Harvest was a lot of work in the hot southwest Oklahoma weather. Sign up your friends now and tell them what a great experience it is to harvest grapes!!!

The work has begun this spring, later than in 2009 due to the ice and snow earlier this year. However, the vineyard is alive and well. Growing fast and furiously. The vines were custom pruned in March and then manually fertilized by John and Scott. 6.5 oz of a special blend of fertilizer mixed to meet the soil requirements of the soil samples taken in Jan of 2010. Over 900 pounds of fertilizer was put down cup by cup on each plant.

On April 23 and 24; John, Scott, Leon and I met to discuss and work on things that we need to do this spring. The wind howled all day Friday and Sat. The sun occasionally poked through the clouds to warm us up a degree or two. Mother Nature has postponed this initial work day due to recent rains. There is a lot of damage from the ice, winds and snow. There are many end posts pulled up and leaning inward and many trellis wires are sagging and leaning to the west. Scott cut 44 locust posts which we set in the 2007 crop to support those leaning lines. They still need to be attached to those new posts. We also used the tape guns that were purchased last year. They are great and cut so much time and waste in tying up new growth. We attached cross ties to the t posts to get ready to attach the double trellis lines to the 2008 crop. We also went through the 2007 crop and put ag ties and branch locks on the new growth. (We only have enough wire to do about three rows....)More wire and cross ties are needed to complete the double trellis on the third row on top in the 2008 vines. John reset the fence around the barn to enlarge the Bermuda area that was plugged last year and Scott set a pin in the putting green west of the barn.(Fred?) It looks really nice.

There are many flower clusters ready to bloom soon, we need to decide whether to thin some of these to produce a large grape before they flower or just let them all bloom. We might thin all of them in the 2008 crop to put another year into the growth of the vine itself. We only have a three day window to make that decision when they start to flower......

We would like to meet on the weekend of May 8th and 9th to work on an electric watering station and to utilize the water storage tank. Other things that need to be done will be to re tie new growth in 2008 crop and attach new growth to the trellis wires in the 2007 crop.

The campsite looks like a bomb hit due to all the limbs that broke during the ice storm. The road is not passable at this time. And the row of cottonwoods was severly damaged due to the ice.

I have pictures to post later today.....