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martinp |
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15/11/2007 |
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We are establishing a small 0.5 acre vineyard in Northland New Zealand and this blog will contain notes and news of how things are progressing. |
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Early summer report |
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By martinp on
14/11/2008
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The vines are growing really rapidly. Have got a bit of an insect problem with the leaves being chewed, so went out and got some insecticide this morning to combat that. We don't want all the leaves to be eaten as the vines need to strengthen this summer ready for the first crop next year. It's only 12 months since they were planted and it is amazing just how well they are looking. Every one of the vines is growing, some more strongly than others, but this is what nature is all about.
We could try for some grapes this sumer, but it is likely they will not be very good quality, and the work involved for only a partial crop seems hardly worthwhile if the results are unlikely to be very special. We would need to net the vines to keep the birds away if we keep a crop which is hard work and costly so we feel the right decision is to wait until next summer.
Not much else to report, the weather really is warming up now and this is why the insects have been active.
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Vines shooting up |
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By martinp on
14/10/2008
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All the vines are shooting like there is no tomorrow. I bet they grow 3 or 4 inches a week. We have removed the smaller shoots from the main trunk leaving the new growth on the main cordons. Most of the vines have flowers which will eventually turn into grapes if we let them. This Summer however we will not be allowing them to fruit so that all their energy goes into establishing stronger plants.
By the end of this Summer we should have the main cordons fully set on the wires. Vines produce grapes only on new growth, so the main cordons are established to provide the base for that growth and fruit in subsequent years.
We are still spraying against mould and fungus, but the copper and sulphur are not overly serious chemicals as far as pollution is concerned.
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Spring has arrived |
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By martinp on
10/09/2008
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Spring has at last arrived here in NZ, the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and the vines are shooting. The weather has been very wet over the winter, reports say 4-5 times the normal rainfall. This has meant that work all but stopped on the vines and it is only yesterday I was able to start the new season spraying program.
The vines have to be sprayed against mould and fungus which has a really detrimental effect on plant growth. Most, if not all, fruit types suffer from this but it has been a bit of a disappointment for me to find out what really has to happen as far as spraying is concerned. Maybe this is something to think about when buying fruit and vegetables at the supermarket, I guess that an "out of sight, out of mind" approach is typical over this. So the vines got a dose of sulphur and copper and separately Roundup to control the weeds. The mould spray has to happen every week while the vines are shooting as new leaves will have no protection from the la ...
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Nearing the end of summer |
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By martinp on
31/03/2008
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It's starting to cool down here in NZ at the moment, still nice during the day, 20-25 C, but a lot cooler at night. All the vineyards around here have harvested their crops, with varying comments made about the expected quality, mostly due to the high rainfall we have had this summer which hasn't helped the grapes ripen.
We will soon have to make a decision on how we are going to prune back our vines. There is probably another couple of months before we do this as there is still some growing time left, but a plan on what we want to achieve next year is required. One commercial vineyard owner reckons we should not plan on harvesting any grapes at all next year, and this will make the vines stronger for the long term, but others have said we can get a partial crop, so would have at least something to look forward to.
I am pulled towards getting something next year, and most of our vines are strong, though one or two, even now, have not reached the first wire. I may ...
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Spraying |
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By martinp on
11/02/2008
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It has been very hot and humid in recent times, and we have had to regularly spray the vines with sulphur and copper to prevent mildew. It is now becoming apparent just how much spraying is required to prevent problems, and having investigated the chemical requirements to prevent vine problems, I am now questioning just what we might be eating if we don't buy organic vegetables.
To get the perfectly formed, even sized, and tasteless vegetables found in most supermarkets, they must use bucket fulls of chemicals, some of which we find, now we are into it, quite toxic. As an example, one of the chemicals I spray, should not be used less than 6 weeks before harvest.
Oh dear, I didn't realise just what the commercial vineyards have to do to produce their grapes. A commercial vineyard near to us started out, some years back, as organic, but they have given up, couldn't sensibly cope with the problems using organic techniques, and they have now reverted to chemical spra ...
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Up to the wires |
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By martinp on
25/01/2008
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The vines are growing very quickly at the moment. We have had some wet weather recently but the temperature has been very warm, despite the cloud, 25C-30C most days, just perfect for the vines, and the weeds!!!!
This summer, the vines will continue to grow and will soon be big enough to be trained along the lower wire. At the moment we are growing a single leader to establish the vine, all the vines have had secondary shoots nipped, or removed, so the plants energy can go into this first cane. By the end of the summer (end April) the first cane hopefully will be about the size of a pencil, and the tip will be pruned to the required length (1m) ready to produce the first grapes next summer.
I ...
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Fast growth rate |
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By martinp on
25/01/2008
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Crickey, I didn't realise just how quickly the vines are growing. Look at the 2 pictures of the vineyard. In the first picture, posted only 3 weeks ago, and you can just about see the vines over the guards, and in the latest quite a few are up to the first wire which is 1m above ground, a growth of around 0.6m I'd better put some more nutrients on them, they really will be needing it growing like that.
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Hedge trimmer |
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By martinp on
04/01/2008
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Here is a picture of the vineyard and you may be able to see some of the vinelettes sticking their leaves over the top of the spray guards.
The spray guards are to protect the young plants from the effects of any weed spray, and also to stop the plants from being pulled from the ground by birds. We have lots of Pukeko birds here, they are the same as birds found in Southern Europe called Purple Gallinules, and they will pull out new plantings if they are not guarded.
We needed to get the trees trimmed along the side of the vines, to let more sun onto the vines on that side, and so hired a local hedge trimmer. This is not a man with a hand-held Black & Deck ...
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Irrigation - what a success |
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By martinp on
31/12/2007
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The decision to add irrigation for the vines has proved its worth in the past week. From a month ago having rain nearly every day for 3 weeks, we are now enjoying the most wonderful summer weather. Clear blue skies and hot sun every day, with a daytime shade temperature of around 28-29 Deg C.
So the irrigation is on every day keeping the roots moist to allow the plants to transpire thereby keeping their leaves cool. The irrigation system is fitted with what are referred to round here as "dribblers" which do exactly as it says on the box, they dribble water at ground level. The actual water consumption is quite low and the advantage is that if we had normal high level sprays onto the foliage, we would be using a huge amount of water to prevent the wet plants from burning and at the same time opening them up to mould growth from the locally much increased humidity.
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All have taken |
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By martinp on
18/12/2007
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Every one of the vines has shoots, and some even have quite a lot of leaves now. We are very pleased that there were no failures. The vine producers we purchased them from were also very good in that on the day the vines arrived by post, they telephoned just to make sure they had arrived, and that all was well. I will give them a call in a while to say that all the little vines have shoots, never hurts to tell suppliers you are satisfied with their products.
The final upper wires will be added to the posts this week, but we won't need them probably until next Summer. We are installing the Scott Henry vine wire system which we are told is better for our area as it promotes more open vines that suffer less from mould than other systems.
We do need some sun, we have had overcast skies and rain most days for 2 weeks now. Ideal I guess to get the little vines started, but some sun will really get them, and me, going.
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The first shoots |
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By martinp on
14/12/2007
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The vines have started growing, and all but a few now have their first leaves. The ones not yet with buds, will almost certainly come along later, we shouldn't expect them all to grow at the same speed. Vines are very vigorous, and can grow in all but very deprived conditions. The quality of the fruit, the whole purpose of the exercise, depends on a whole range of things, and this is where the expertise of the best growers lies, but where at this stage, we really are testing the water.
The weather has been very wet in the past week, so work on the vineyard has been intermittent. The irrigation system installation is nearly complete and, despite the recent heavy rain, the vines are not waterlogged. We are lucky here to have very free draining volcanic soil, perhaps almost too good for a vineyard, so we will wait to see how quickly the vines develop. If the soil ...
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Wild weather |
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By martinp on
10/12/2007
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Since buying all the irrigation equipment, we have had a week of nothing but rain, very heavy at times, accompanied with strong winds. The little vines are starting to shoot, and most have buds on them now, but it's too wet to take the camera out to get any pictures. The temperature is mild, so there's now a potential for mould growth, we will need to keep an eye on things just in case. The vinelettes are protected behind card shields to stop birds pulling them out, so they are fine, but we have had enough rain now.
This is the worst rain we have had since arriving in NZ, usually it lasts a day or so then is sunny again, but not this time.
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Irrigation of the vines |
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By martinp on
04/12/2007
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Now the vines have been planted, we need to keep them watered. Luckily, as we live a bit out of town, we are on an irrigation water supply. In NZ unless you live in a built up community, water is supplied from an irrigation supply or by collecting rainwater from the roof into tanks.
Irrigation water is supplied straight from a lake or reservoir, piped out to the customer with no treatment. We have filters on the water entering the house to remove the big lumps, and special microbiotic filters on a drinking water tap in the kitchen that we use when cooking or boiling the kettle etc. When we first moved into our house, we knew there were filters on the water, and after a couple of months I thought I'd better check them. Imaging my surprise to remove the filter holder to find it empty!! We had been using unfiltered water but suffered no harm. The drinking tap filter was in place, though I bet that was years old as well.
Interestingly, when we eat out in town, the ta ...
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The vines have arrived |
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By martinp on
29/11/2007
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How exciting, after all that preparation work the vines have been delivered.
These are Chardonnay B 95 on a Swarzmann rootstock.
They are stored chilled at the supplier and so are dormant up to the point they are dispatched.
The vines must be planted soon after arrival, and we are almost finished now, but it is raining hard this morning, so at least the vines we planted yesterday have had a good extra watering.
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Hole boring |
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By martinp on
28/11/2007
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In readiness for the arrival of the vines, we rented a hole borer from a local hire company to make the holes. We need 180 holes each around 600mm deep and there was no way I was prepared to do that by hand. So here we are, myself at the helm, and Susie making sure everything lined up.  It took us around 4 hours to make all the holes, not bad really. Once the holes were done, the lower wires were attached to the posts ready for the vines which need a bamboo to support them while they are small. The vines should arrive today, more pictures soon.
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Post fitting |
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By martinp on
23/11/2007
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The vineyard posts are being fitted by a rammer. This is a piece of machinery attached to the back of a small tractor that has a weight that pounds the post into the ground. Despite the machinery looking a little "antique", it really works very quickly, about 2 minutes per post.
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Meeting other small vineyard owners |
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By martinp on
19/11/2007
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We went to a party over the weekend at one of the local vineyards and met up with lots of other people starting vineyards just like us. It is estimated there are around 30 small vineyards in the North of NZ, and a general opinion is that grapes are now taking over from the citrus that was big back in the 60's.
A real treat was that the owners of a local commercial vineyard Marsden Estate were there and they brought along several bottles of their Black Rocks Chardonnay. This wine has just won the major award "Champion Wine of the Show" at the 2007 International Chardonnay Challenge.
I'm not a white wine fan, but this Chardonnay is wonderful, we were very lucky to try a glass or 3!!!!
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The vineyard |
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By martinp on
15/11/2007
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The project is a small hobby vineyard growing Chardonnay grapes. The expected yield will be enough grapes for around 1200 bottles a year.
All the processing and bottling will be done by a local vineyard, all we have to do is tend the vines and dream of warm summers evenings sipping chilled glasses of delicious wine from our own vineyard.
The initial planting is in late Spring in NZ, so the first crop will not be for 18 months. This will allow the vines plenty of time to establish this Summer and is possibly better than allowing them to crop in the first season.
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Work has started |
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By martinp on
15/11/2007
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The plot has been marked out, the posts and wires have been delivered, and the rows have been weed sprayed.
The posts will be laid in position ready for the post rammer which will be arriving at the end of next week. It'll give the weed killer a chance to clear the planting strip
The vines arrive a couple of days later, so hopefully will be planted at the weekend after next.
We will have 5 rows of vines each about 70 meters long.
This is exciting, and it all appears, at the moment, to be amazingly simple. I guess the real skill comes with vine grafting and rootstock preparation which does seem to be a black art.
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