Thursday, June 7, 2007

Planting Day

After more than a week of cold weather and rain, April 20th arose bright, sunny, and warm! It was a good omen for us. I had a crew of eight scheduled to start at 8:00. We ended up with two extra. The work flew by. We had 2/3 of the work done by lunch, and the entire vineyard planted by 3:00!! I had planned on it taking two days, so I was overjoyed. I would like to thank everyone who showed up to help: Jennifer Layton, Laura Layton, Joseph Layton Jr., Joseph Layton Sr., George Short, Barbara Bailey, James Bailey, Ted Cooney, Franny Hearthway, and Carol Robinson. Thank you all for you hard work!!

Our crew was fresh and ready to start at 8:00! Photos coming soon!

Friday, June 1, 2007

Pre-Plant Preparation

To start my pre-plant preparations, I laid out the vineyard design. I put metal stakes at each end of each row, and stretched a string between them to create a straight line. Then I used spray paint to mark the line. I ended up using over 22 cans of spray paint!! I then put the metal posts on the sides, to mark where the wooden posts would go, and stretched a string across the width of the vineyard. I then marked each cross point, and this is where a post will go. This process took George (our employee) and I almost three full days.

After the marks were in place, we started driving the 3-4 inch line poles into place. We got along very well, but it still took four days to get all 378 poles into the ground. We had originally planned on auguring the poles in, but were advised that driving (pounding) them in was both quicker and more secure.