A successful season has come to a close. As is usual during this time of year my posts will decrease significantly until spring. I may post the occasional weather update if we hit a cold spell. I may also post updates on how well the high tunnel is performing.
2007 milestones
-Planted 300 more vines
-harvested 1500 lbs of grapes
-sold my first crop to a commercial winery
-finished high tunnel for experimental vines
-48 Lacrescent vines trained and ready for first small crop
-1st crop from St Pepin
-1st crop from LaCrosse
2007 challenges
- late spring frost took out over 1/3 of the foch. (it didn't kill them, but set them back 1 year)
-drought caused severe stress especially on the over cropped foch it may lead to little or no crop next year on those vines.
-drought also may have killed between 10 and 15 % of new plantings.
-unfinished high tunnel allowed deer to impact the experimental vines
-Early light frost reduced cold hardiness going into winter
Goals for 2008
-Plant 200 Marquette vines.
-Have a Well drilled in between vineyard 1 and 3 for irrigation and frost mitigation
-put in a trellis with steel endposts in Vineyard 3
-Increase foch yield from 900 lbs to 1500 lbs
-Maintain or slightly increase LaCrosse and St Pepin yield ( about 600 lbs - 900 lbs)
-get first harvest from experimental vineyard ~100 lbs
-start a foliar feeding program
-buy new pull behind sprayer
-finish trellis in high tunnel
The High Tunnel is DONE!!!! It took a lot of weekends, but it is finally done. I finished it on Saturday with help of my brother Jon, my sister Ann, and my bro in law Dave.
Outside
Inside
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