Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Grape

Fence Posts and Grape Vine Holes

Posted on



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!

Posted on
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

Posted on
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.



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.