Our long awaited plants finally arrived this week – all 200 chambourcin grapes. We started planting the same evening, using the small rototiller to loosen up the soil in the already dug holes, we managed to plant about 25 vines each evening. The final 100 vines were planted on Saturday – not much to see yet, just “sticks” poking out of the ground. Hoping this will work!
Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm
Fence Posts and Grape Vine Holes
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| Lars and Jeff making holes for grape vines |
Spent time this weekend marking off the grape patch for the soon to arrive chambourcin vines and drilling holes (used the biggest auger we have for the tractor)…this is a rather slow process, but it will be worthwhile having the large holes for easier planting. We are making the holes 6 feet apart, and the rows are 10 feet wide. (5 rows of 40 grapes)
Earlier this week, one of Jeff’s friends had gotten a guy with a portable sawmill to come to his farm to cut up locust trees into fence posts. Jeff helped them most of the week during his free time, and we got about 75 posts plus all the “scrap” boards. Jeff has been spending time “sharpening” the bottom of the posts with a chain saw – for easier pounding. He then drills smaller holes with a hand-held auger, “drops” in the sharpened post, and uses the bucket of the tractor (which he fills with heavy rocks), to pound the post in. Jeff’s been working on this a few hours each day, here is the first finished row of trellis posts in the blackberry patch:
Our First Winery Trade Show!
Went to Richmond this week to attend the “Wineries Unlimited” trade show for a day. Jens came along and we took his truck. Left Carlisle around 5:30 am and got to the convention Center by 10:00 am. That gave us a whole day to check out the exhibits – and we needed every minute of it. We saw so much equipment for processing and bottling, some for planting/cultivating and trellising, as well as lots of bottles, corks, labels and tasting room stuff. Everyone was so friendly and helpful – we talked to lots of different people and learned much. We did buy a wine transfer pump (got a “end of show” deal, plus no shipping costs) – also got many samples (including close to 100 different wine labels). Definitely worth the trip – we had a blast!
Pea Planting
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| Jeff and Lars planting peas |
We planted 50 lbs of garden peas in the field that is supposed to grow grapes next year. Since peas are nitrogen fixing plants, we figured we can’t go wrong sowing them. Hopefully they will grow and we have time to pick some of them – we did find someone with a mechanical pea sheller…We’ll see if they grow first. Jeff adjusted the gears on our corn planter and used a different seed plate for the peas. We had actually bought 100 lbs (not knowing exactly what we needed) – luckily the peas came in 50 lbs bags, so we are returning the one unused bag.
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| very long rows of peas! |
It was a bright sunny day, but not very warm – mid 40’s…also spent a lot of time hoeing and rototilling the blackberry patch, we are almost done – less than half a row to go!!! Also cleaned up the asparagus patch, dug the first 37 holes for the grape vines, which should arrive next week, and started cleaning up the herb garden.
Plowing and Planting in March
Jeff has been busy plowing and disking our various “plots” during the last two weeks:
- the vegetable garden (which he “squared up” – meaning he made it even larger)
- the field below the barn, where we will plant our first 200 grape vines in April
- half the field above the pond, which we will plant in peas (about 100 lbs) and sweet corn this year, then cover crop it to get it ready for more grapes next year
Last weekend, with unseasonable warm weather, we started planting the garden:
- 50 lbs of Kenebec potatoes
- 25 lbs of Red Pontiac potatoes
- 300 “Candy” onion plants
- 1 lbs of red onion sets
- 5 bulbs of California garlic
- 3 seed packets of Hollow Crown parsnips
Kept on hoeing the blackberry plants from last year, working on about 25 at a time each evening after work – as of today, we have 362 finished (=138 to go). The ground is perfect right now, weeds are coming out easy and the weather has been holding up just fine – though we are supposed to get rain and sleet tonight 🙁
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| garden patch |
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| Chambourcin patch |
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| pea & corn patch |
