A new reference point..

Well, It guarantees a good result
Looking after a backyard grape vine


Last week, mid October, and this week too, I was keen on keeping the vines growing up tall and strong, tending the baby ones carefully too. One to two liters every other day of tap water and a snail scan. Eggshells are good for that job, but we do not eat eggs more than once or twice a week at the moment, so that organic pesticide is low...

Looking for a reason to learn more about caring for them, I found by accident a site that wanted to sell me a great guide or at least a downloadable pdf file.

The Complete Grape growing Guide by Danie Wium "The Grape Guy" and based around an intersting concept of growing 45 pounds of grapes off a single vine...

Well, I have skimmed through and re-skimmed for relevancy to wine grape growing and found it somewhat useful. When I have an acre or two, I will look forward to 45 pounds of fruit off a vine-, that would make nearly 22 kg, or about 16 liters of wine, per plant. Wow, thirty plants now, means-- 500 bottles?!?

The other day, I went for a walk through the vines looking for faults and all, and saw that the wind during the week had kindly broken a few new canes off two of the vigorously growing Pinot! Bugger, as there was a couple of bunches-to-be, lost. In fact, the Pinot is wildly vigorous, so much so that I needed some pointers from the guide. I may cut down the watering to twice a week now, but still give the nursery plants water as soon as the top soil dries out. Soon as the caps fall off, in with some pest and mildew spraying.

The rest of the plants were looked at and from what I gather, any suckers, and, I gathered, non fruiting canes should be removed, so I did that to the Pinot and Shiraz.

Non of the year old plants showed any sign of fruiting this year- so that's good. The two year old plants are not so vigorous, one has some fruiting canes though, and will leave it be. The cuttings are coming along, any that were not leafing up were removed.

From the SBS television programme "The Wine Lovers Guide To Australia", I think I may have identified the Garage Foxy Grapes as Gerwurtz Traminer, red berries, large, perfumed, and it gives 30 pounds per bush! Currently, last years vintage is being fortified, and is not too bad as a sweet, nearly cloyingly sweet, aperitif. IMHO anyway.