Blue Door Vineyard’s Grapelog :: Grape-growing, winemaking & wine

Greetings and Welcome!

Thanks for taking the time to read this latest edition of our newsletter. I know many of you are busy with your own vineyard maintenance this time of year so I truly do appreciate you taking some time away. I’ve always meant for this newletter to be an informative and fun read for my subscribers. And part of that means publishing it frequently enough to make it worth your while and timely. At times I have not been as timely in publishing the newsletter as at other times and for that, please accept my apologies. I aim to be more consistent in publishing a quality newsletter. Now, on to the latest edition!

Vineyard Weather
This spring has been cooler than most. During the month of May we have had many days in the 50’s and low 60’s when normally we ease into the 70’s. Finally we are seeing some warmer weather this third week of the month. One interesting weather item to note – in each of the past three years, we have had warm springs and then whammo! A leaf/bud killing frost the third week of May. So far this year this has not happened. So despite the overall coolness, we have not had a late spring frost either. Go figure!

Pest Maintenance
I took the pre-emptive step of spraying my Frontenac vines this spring with a 3-in-1 organic pesticide/fungicide. The name escapes me right now, but this particular product seems to keep the little beetles at bay that like to munch on the Frontenac buds. I think I caught it before they even started. Likely, I’ll need to re-apply in 2-3 weeks just to make sure I didn’t miss any.

Additionally, I plan to be more aggressive this year in keeping gophers out of my vineyard. In the past, I’ve tried a variety of repellents to no avail. This year, I plan to use traps to rid the vineyard of these buggers. Even at that, it feels like I’ll be swatting misquitoes with a broomstick. My vines grow adjacent to 160+ acres of fallow, native prairie. Check back for updates.

Vine Update
Valiant – just when I thought the last of my Valiant vines were toast they seem to be making a comeback this spring. For one reason or another, none of them did much last season. One did die and I ended up replacing that one with a vine from my ‘nursery’.

Prairie Star – the Prairie Stars continue to perform well. They are late-bloomers in every respect. It has taken quite awhile to get them established. But now that they are I’ve learned to really appreciate their ability/tendency to hold off on breaking bud until we are past our typical last frost. I’d love to get a small crop off of these vines in the fall.

Frontenac – last summer was a rough one in the vineyard and the Frontenacs seemed to suffer quite a bit in the heat and drought. I believe one young vine died in the process. But the rest have come back quite nicely. Frontenac is amazing for it’s ability to push buds out of every nook and cranny possible. Buds are swelling out of places I never would have expected them! Truly amazing!

Marquette – I need to pay some serious attention to my Marquette vines this season. At this point, one of them is definitely alive. I cannot tell if the other two are yet. As with any young vines, they will need a little extra watering this summer and a good dose of fertilizer.

Foch – this might be the year that I finally give up on my Foch vines. I have always had trouble with them getting nipped in the spring by a late frost. But this year, only a couple of my twelve Foch vines are breaking bud. The rest show little if any activity and what activity there is seems to be mainly shoots coming up from the roots. Its not worth my time to baby these vines through a Minnesota winter, so I may end up replacing them with Marquette vines.

Sabrevois - going into last season, I expected big things from my Sabrevois vines. Three of them seemed to be finally over the hump in terms of maturation. But I believe they were hit by my gopher friends and now none of them show any sign of life. Another vine I may end up parting ways with just due to the sheer effort that has gone into them with no results.

Thanks again for taking the time to read the Blue Door Vineyard Newsletter for May 2008! Please check back for future updates.

Don

We’ve just released a great new feature for visitors to the website – a discussion forum for both grape growing and winemaking. There is a link on the right-hand side of the page to Forums. Take a look around, register yourself and see what you think. This forum can be a great way for all of us to share our experiences in grape growing and winemaking and also to learn from one another.

NOTE: When you register, our site admin receives an e-mail and for now will be manually activating your account. This will be done for the time being to ensure that spam is not getting through.

I was able to get out in the vineyard this weekend and take care of a few ’spring-cleaning’ items.

For the first time, I decided to use round-up (glyphosphate) to control weeds in the vine rows. I had enough to spray around the base of each vine in a circle about 3 feet wide and then I went back around and spray between the vines. Ultimately, I’d like to have bare ground underneath the vine rows.

I also moved one Valiant vine from a nursery spot to a spot in the Valiant row where another vine had died. Once that was done, I gave each vine about 1 cup of 12-6-10 fertilizer. I plan to follow that up in early June with another dose of granular fertilizer and then will use foliar fertilizer (like Miracle-Gro) the rest of the season. Since I had enough fertilizer, I gave the raspberries a shot as well.

The last thing I did was to hit the base of each vine and a few gopher holes in the vineyard with rodent repellent. It’s a product I’m trying out that’s loaded with capcacin. Time will tell if it keeps the critters at bay.

I’m WAY overdue for a newsletter and plan to send one out in the near future. Thanks for your patience!