Newsletter Volume II, Issue 3 (June 2004)
| Welcome Welcome to the June 2004 edition of our newsletter. After our last frost of the season on May 14th, most plants have recovered nicely and are well on their way to ‘getting big’. The frost was a hard one, especially for the date. The temperature got down to 26° F which caused a few leaves to die and many to become deformed. But the plants are pushing past this now. Read on for all the details!   Newsletter Contents Tell your friends about our newsletter!  |
| New Vines Update Well we have planted about all the new vines we plan to for the season. In all, we planted 12 Marechal Foch and 3 Sabrevois. We had not planned on planting any Sabrevois, but when we received three bareroot plants in the mail from Great River Vineyard, we had to make a quick decision about what to do with them. It turns out that these three vines were the remainder of our order from last season.   We put grow tubes on the Foch right away - if nothing else to protect them from deer and rabbits. We have also grow-tubed a couple of the Sabrevois from last year that did not have a strong season of growth last year. Based on our previous experiences with the ‘tubes, we plan on removing them at the end of June. This will give the vines plenty of time to harden off before winter. We will just have to be extra attentive with deer-preventive measures. |
| Surprise Vines! After realizing that all of our Prairie Star vines were dead this spring, we began trying to figure out what we were going to replace them with. We had several ideas - all of which meant waiting until next year to replace the vines. Then on a recent trip over to our Hudson, WI vineyard we noticed that despite severe deer predation and neglect (on our part), many of the vines we planted there have survived and were attempting to outgrow the weeds. So with a little work, we cleaned them up and put grow tubes on them. For the Prairie Stars, we actually used two grow tubes (to make them 4 feet tall) - again mainly for protection from deer. In all the surviving vines include 4 Prairie Stars (out of 6), 5 Frontenacs (out of 6), 5 Valiants (out of 6) and 2 Sabrevois (out of 6).   So our gameplan now is to get these Prairie Stars to thrive this season and into the future. We will take cuttings from them and use them to replace the Prairie Stars that have died in our Lake Elmo location. We may do the same with the Sabrevois. This is a great option to have and we will definitely be paying more attention to the Hudson vines than we have. |
| Fertilizing This season we are trying a couple different options for fertilizing the vines. The first is a product from Miracle-Gro called Shake ‘N Grow - it’s a 10-10-10 slow-release fertilizer. In addition, we are adding well-seasoned compost to the vines. The plants are responding well - we have seen more growth this spring than we ever have. Of course the vines root systems are undoubtedly bigger than ever - that could be a contributing factor as well. On a recent visit out to the vines, we noted several Valiant leaves bigger than my hand. Â |
| Weather Notes We have had an odd mix of weather this spring. Early May was warm enough that our Valiants and Frontenacs began leafing out. Then on the 14th of May we had a frost with temperatures down to 26° F. Since then we have received a lot of rain. It rained 21 out of the 31 days in May. We have begun breaking out of the wet weather pattern and are now seeing rapid growth in all of the vines - especially on the warm sunny days. On June 7th we had a high temperature of 97° F!   Vineyard Status Prairie Star - These vines appear to all be dead. We attribute the deaths more to the growers lack of knowledge than the plants ability to survive. We recently discovered four Prairie Stars in our oft-neglected second vineyard in nearby Hudson, WI. Upon this discovery we took several steps to protect these vines and will put additional updates on our progress on the website. Frontenac - After getting hit by the mid-May frost, the Frontenacs have also recovered nicely and we expect (and are already seeing) major growth out of them. Sabrevois - Two of our three Sabrevois survived the winter and are growing - albeit slower than the Frontenacs. But with proper care, they should be fine. To our surprise, we received three additional Sabrevois bareroot vines from Great River Vineyard in May. These were left over from last season’s order. So far, they have not pushed buds - we are a bit concerned, but it has been cool here until the last few days. Look for additional updates on our website. Marechal Foch - The Foch seem to be taking well. We have been watching them closely and watering as needed. Lately we have had enough rain that we have not had to water much. Thanks! Our next newsletter should arrive in your inbox sometime next month. In the meantime, thanks for reading and take care! Don’t forget to tell your friends about our newsletter! |
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