Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

We are still working with the grape vines every day – right now, our mature Chambourcin grapes need to be thinned out (again).  Apparently, the late frost we had in May caused all the cordons to sprout new shoots and now we have way too much vegetation, too little sunlight and not enough airflow going on.  While we’ve been thinning and tying away, we discovered several bird nests:

Nest with 5 eggs inside a flower pot in the tractor shed

This nest actually had an outside ring of grapevine branches for camouflage

Tiniest nest ever, with a very small egg – just one!

Jens, Jeff and Lars worked all day Saturday installing the  trellis system end posts for the grapes we planted this spring.  They used 4×4 posts and concreted those in – the smaller posts in the grape rows were already installed.  On Sunday, after the concrete had a chance to set and harden, Jeff and Lars attached the wires and tensioners.  They got the bottom wire installed in all six rows.  (By the way, each row of grapes is exactly .1 mile, at least according to the GPS on Tina’s running app).

By Sunday evening, we were ready to start tying up the young grapes to the wires.  We selected the strongest shoot from the vine (cut all others off), and then tied a piece of baler twine to one of the cut-off stems, carefully wrapped the twine around the grape vine and then attached the twine to the wire. We finished two rows before it got too dark to see – hopefully we can get them all done this week, if the weather cooperates.

Our 3 year old Chambourcin grapes are growing up:  by mid June, most shoots have reached the second wire and grape clusters are filling out.

We spent most of this afternoon working in the “vineyard”, tying those grape vines that are long (and strong) enough to the next level wire.  We used different tools and materials to do this.  Jeff prefers a  traditional tying tool, which has a hook that twirls wire around the vine and trellis. The spool of wire attaches to his wrist, and Jeff  can tie a lot faster
than his two helpers.  Tina has been using a  “twisty tie”  type material and just cuts lengths of this to use on the grapes.  Both of these wires will deteriorate after a few months and naturally fall off the trellis, making the next pruning season easier.  Lars uses “zip ties” for the tricky branches that need more support – those ties need to be cut off in the fall.