Where have you been?

1. Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya
   
2. Asti, Italy
   
3. Grand Canyon National Park, AZ, USA
   

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Vineyard Diary

June - Plenty of rain in the last part of May and early June, so our fears about the drout have receded somewhat. The combination of sun, rain and heat (it reached 25 degrees on the 24th May) have pushed the vines to a lot of folliage growth. In the moscato vineyard we are now working to train the hight back down onto the top wire of the trellis (see photo's) at the same time we must strip away some of the leaves to alow light to get to the developing grapes and ensure air circulation.

May - 19 May. Today we had to apply a special treatment to the vines as there was a developing threat of a fungal leaf attack. In fact all our neigbours are treating for the same thing - every year we face some kind of "threat" to our vines.
All the vines are trained onto the trellis - in fact we had to do this exercise twice in the 3 year old barbera vineyard as high winds effectively undid all our work (sob).
6 May -We had some great rain last week and fortunately not too much damage to the young shoots that had not yet been supported or tied up.
We are now working full pelt to clean the excess growth off each vine (see illustration). All shoots that are not on the tied down "cane" or the much shorter "renewal spur" must be stripped off entirely. This is done by hand and each shoot is nipped off with thumb and forefinger. The illustration shows a moscato vine.

Here is the best value tool I have bought so far. It is a specialist staple gun that has a bio-degradable tape spool in the handle, the action alows one handed attaching of vines (and anything else you want to train up trellis or canes) and has increased the speed of operations about six fold. Price circa 35 Euro.

(1 May) - At long last some rain. Of course now the fear is that the rainstorms tomorrow will be violent and damage the delecate new growth on hte vines. The couple of hours of rain we had last night just dissapeared (the ground was bone dry at lunch time). Looks like there may be over an inch of rain tomorrow though.
Strapping up the three year old vines (which have now reached the top wire of the trellis!) is done and we are on the ground again - thinning out and strapping up the two year olds. Ohh my back...