The Portable Vineyard
An IMBY Project!
What Is It? "The Portable Vineyard" is potted Shiraz vines In-My-Back-Yard.
When?
Established [about] 2004.
Established [about] 2004.
Where?
Central Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, called a cold climate area.
Central Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, called a cold climate area.
Why?
Budgeting, and because I had never thought about fermenting grapes.
Budgeting, and because I had never thought about fermenting grapes.
How?
Cuttings off new already planted six Shiraz Grape Vines IMBY
Cuttings off new already planted six Shiraz Grape Vines IMBY
Who?
Tone- stay-at-home-dad ex-rigpig geologist and wine loverShed- or alcoholery
As hobby, wine fermentation and beer brewing needs a Shed.The Garden Shed I used to have has been turned into a teens "palace", clothes and all...
So the Old Garage is now the site of the infamous Alcoholery.
Winery, Brewery and Distillery
For instance, there are
4 or 5 small plastic vats of 25 to 50 liters capacity,
more than 10 demijohns ranging from 5 to 64 liters,
about twenty dozen empty wine bottles ready to go, cleaning stuff for it all,
Basket press
Grape crusher
and small electric distillery unit...
Tubing, corking machine, beer-capper,
Everything I need to produce a steady supply of handcrafted alcohol, anyway
Portable Grapevines
Stage One
Step 1
Prunings from established vines
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Shiraz
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Pinot Noir
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The Propagation mode is usually a cutting with two nodes. This is the method I have used and seems to work: bury end coated with a cuttings propagation powder, honey with one node beneath the soil and one exposed, and the right way up of course. Usually do about fifty to sixty, to give me at least five or more by winter the following year
Stage 2
Cuttings at year on transferred from the propagation bed to individual pots during winter.
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Pinot Nursery year old cuttings
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Stage 3
The Nursery. If there are vigorous growers, these are transferred to a larger pot and pruned back to leave the strongest cane.
Stage 4
Productive Vines
The first batch of successful cuttings transferred in October 2004. After working in a vineyard for six months and some winery work, I thought a portable vineyard might work at home! The supermarket had large pots for a cheap enough price.
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Pinot Noir x 7
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Shiraz, planted left and the Portable Vines
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Using limestone as a 5 to 10 cm base in the pot, not done yet.
Use 2 liter plastic bottles with the ends cut off, and watering each pot with just 2 liters. Initially, I left the cap on and drilled a 5mm hole to drip feed the water, then left it off as the hole got plugged too easily.
Two years ago, there was an article in the newspaper garden section about having plant-pots in a saucer deep enough to hold 2 to 4 liters, to keep the lower end wet during hot periods, and seemed like a good idea, and went with that and seems successful too.
Mulch to keep moisture in and weeds out.
Obviously, the garage grape vine with the foxey grapes
Buckets
Crusher
Press
Bin
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