It's been such a different Spring. So much rain. So much growth.
Spring in the vineyard keeps you busy: training the young vines (replants), slashing long grass and lots of walking, bending and lifting.
Walking: 20 acres of vines means about 28 km of trellis.
Bending: Vines in Spring push out shoots not only from the buds we want for fruit, but also push out shoots from the trunk and base of the vine. There is no easy way of getting rid of these. So we walk up and down the rows, bending and breaking the crisp shoots. One vine at a time. The trick is to do enough each day so that the task feels do-able, but not so much that you wake up stiff and sore and don't want to come back tomorrow. Thanks to Roula for her help with this task. The First Lady and I only bend so much before we break!
Lifting: As the vines grow and the shoots become canes. We use a Vertical Shoot Positioning (VPS) as advocated by Dr Richard Smart. VPS allows the sunlight to get to the grapes and produces better coloured and flavoured grapes. But long canes want to hang down. To get them positioned vertically we use four training wires on each row of vines. The last couple of weeks has seen us walk the vineyard lifting the wires (only the first 2 for now) and liftings the growing canes upward. The training wires clip into a series of specially bent staples on the posts. Someone asked me how we bent the staples, but I'm pleased to say they come already bent. Lifting seems easier, bend down only every third vine and lift the wire to the post. I estimate that the length of wire weighs about 1 kilo, except when it get tangled in the grass or with the other wire, then it's 5 or 10 kilos. 130 lifts and turns per row, 12 rows per day, 1500 light weight repetitions and your arms and back truly are tested. Thanks to Muhummad for his help with this task. In a couple of weeks we'll do it all again.