I was scheduled to plant 60 vinifera in the pit vineyard (15 Cabernet Franc, 15 Merlot, 15 Caebernet Sauvignon, and 15 Chardonnay.), and another 24 Seedless concord in the top row at the old Park Vineyard.
Another cool mostly cloudy day with threatening looking skies. I got to "pit" vineyard fairly early after picking up the rental generator, drill, and 10 guage 100ft cord. The generator fired up right away, and worked well. I put the drill auger on the drill that I rented ... (the auger is a 2 ft rod with a 2.5 inch spiral blade on it.) I had tested lightly once before, but decided to dig another test hole, to see how the drill/generator combo worked. Well I had dug more then 5 inches, when the welds holding the blade to the rod broke!
So here I was, not a vine planted, and my instrument of digging had already failed. I considered my options ... I could run to Green Bay, and blow 2 hours. I decided to try Pulaski ... I hoped that the CO-OP or the Verns Hardware would have an auger.
I got to Pulaski ... I check both places no auger. The CO-OP did have the large augers, but I didn't think they would work well going through the plastic. Plus they were tough to handle by yourself ... not to mention expensive. So I called my
Mom, and asked her to run to the a store in Green Bay to get me 4 augers .... in case more broke. I made the call from the BVM parking lot .... they were cooking booyah for something ... it smelled good, so I picked up a gallon ($16 bucks). (by the way ... it wasn't that good ... potatoes were under cooked ... not enough seasoning ... needed salt and pepper etc... does not hold a candle to Vernon's or my Dad's.)
I got back to the vineyard and worked on preparing some other things .... setting up the irrigation, marking the vine locations on the black plastic etc.
When my Mom came she dropped off the augers, and I was able to resume planting. I was much more carefully with the augers this time. I went more slowly and carefully.
I dug all of the holes for the first row. (the first row to the west) I opened up the box of vines, and stuck them in pails of water. The first west row was going to be Cabernet Franc. All of the vinifera that I was planting were grafted on to root stock. The grafts were precoated by Double A with wax to prevent the graft union
from drying out. I planted each vine such that the graft union was about 2 inches above the soil. I did no trimming of the roots. Since each hole was about 2 feet deep, and each grafted vine was 15 - 18 inches long. I lowered the root part of the vine as deep as it would go careful to keep the roots pointing down ward. I then pulled the vine out of the hole until the graft was about 2 inches above the soil level. I then push dirt down the hole .... I tried to use wet muddy dirt when possible to insure that the roots had no air spaces. I wasn't always successfully in doing so.
I ended up with one extra vine ... 16 were sent by mistake. ..... I THOUGHT AT THE TIME ....
The next row was merlot .... I again dug all 15 holes in a row ... I was getting much
better and faster with the hole drill now. Each hole could be done in about 30 seconds or so, unless I hit some clay or hard pan .... some holes seemed sandier than others too.
I planted the whole row of merlot in row two. At this point it started to rain again, so I decided to work on the irrigation for a while since I didn't want to
work in the rain with an electric drill.
I got the irrigation pump set up about 12-15 feet above the pit water. A 30 foot intake hose was attached to the pump. I made sure all fittings were tight. After great effort I was not able to get things to work. Soon my brother James stopped
by with my niece Treva. He showed me what I was doing wrong ... which was several
things. One ... I needed to close the discharge with a valve until pressure had built up ... two he thought that I was too far from the water ... even though the pump should have been able to draw water 25 feet high, he said in practice it was best to be closer to the water. So after some experimentation, we concluded I needed to be much closer to the water. Unfortunately, I will have to set up a platform closer to the water. That will have to wait until another weekend. For now, since the rain had stopped for a while, it was back to planting.
I was going to plant the Cabernet Sauvignon next. Unfortunately I could not find any
vines labeled Cab Sauvignon. Turns out they sent me two different batches of Cab franc instead ... (two different clone varieties.) This was not good news.
I really wanted the Cab Sauvignon for the Bordeaux blend that I wanted to make. I did not know if the vines were just miss labeled, or if they sent the wrong vines. So I planted the Cabernet Franc vines in the third row (these are the Cab Franc vines that matched what I ordered.) The final row was chardonnay.
At this point I drove out to the Park vineyard to dig the holes for the Seedless Concord grapes. I had to plant 24 of them, and since I had to return the drill and generator the next day, I wanted to get that done. All in all ... I broke 4 augers
for all of the plantings .... in all cases, the single weld at the top and bottom of
each auger is what broke. Since then, I have bought a new auger which has what appears to be better welds, and three of them one at the top, bottom, and middle.
By the end of the day, I was able to get all of the Vinifera that I had, planted. The concord seedless remained.
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