Anja and Duff bought a brand new mulch spreader, from Millcreek Manufacturing, and it was delivered to the farm this morning. We will be using it on all three vineyards, which are fortunately located within a half mile radius. It took us two days to mulch six acres of grapevines. And the mulch pile, which we had been amassing for two years, dwindled to nothing!
Here is a link to a video showing how it works.
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| Beautifully mulched grapevines!! |
The last few weekends were spent planting more grapevines. We had prepared the ground already, but still had to mark the rows, as well as each spot for the vines. Then we dug out a deep enough hole for each rootcluster. The first weekend, we planted 200 additional Traminette vines at Anja & Duff’s ground, and last weekend, we planted 150 Chambourcin vines (grafted, on rootstock 3309) at the Long Shot Farm. Everyone helped and it did not take us that long at all!
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| Toben (7) helps to make holes for the vines |
We must have made some math error because when we were all done, we still had space for another 50 or so vines. Luckily, Double A Vineyard had sufficient grapes left over, and shipped them out right away- so those stragglers got planted today.
After we had planted all the vines, we used our plastic layer, and covered them – then we had to go through and poke holes for each new vine to stick out. We are hoping that this will help in case we run into another drought like last year.
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| Duff checks out his newly planted Traminettes |
We got the back side of the barn done! Replaced the upper vent with a window and re-attached the rain spouting. The only mishap was one nail out of the nail gun missed a board, went inside the barn, where it ricocheted off a wine barrel and shattered a window pane from the inside. But we got it fixed and all looks good now.
Now we will work on taking the old silo down!
Sadly there will be a bit of break in the barn progress, as we are waiting for warmer weather to stain the remaining boards for the front of the barn. Hoping for May to get this done.
A lot of progress was made this week: the entire lower side (above the crush pad) was covered in boards and battens, and we put in three large windows where the old hay doors used to be. We also added a window next to the entrance door on the upper side and four large windows were framed in on the back side!
We finally got an overhead door for the lower level of the barn. It had to be custom built to fit between the barn posts and the stone wall. Installation was a bit tricky as well, because nothing in the old barn is actually level, nor plumb. So kudos to the crew that managed to install the door and have it pretty much airtight. It will be so helpful to move crates of grapes and empty tanks through this door come harvest season!
