Vineyard N3

Grapes are slowly making it inside-patio-outside (for 3-4h a day, because high mountain spring sun can burn anything not used to it very quickly, and all my grapes are sound asleep right now, they know next week another snow is coming, so they do sit tight)...

Weeds are coming strong and need to be dialed with.
These are root stock from abroad, table grapes, they handle zones 3-4.

On the other side... almost all gladiolas are planted (regardless of foretasted snow, in composting beds they will be ok.... because snow will not be 3 days like last year, but only one and very short mostly rain and then some freeze-snow...
I planted all... except of these... pots... Clearly I planted some chickens there.

And they messed and tossed out my good compost.

So that to be re-filled and planted, and chicken wire goes over that. Gladiolas come through, but chickens do not scratch because they do not like chicken wire at all.

Like so.

 Wire needs to be added, chickens are in pens till I get to that, because they will be right back at it digging out gladiolas, and I do not like that.

The wire is green, better than rock (that heats way too much up here in mountains). So whoever has self-planting chickens... coated chicken wore does work... If you do not forget to put it over the winter like I did... and chickens will plant themselves there wasting your good compost...

Not exactly wasted, other plants benefit too... 

compost pile, wood chips on top.

 Still, more work, could have being prevented, oh well, can not catch everything.

Chickens were bad, and they planted themselves in new work in progress vineyard.

It's bordering compost pile and Largest variety will be feeding of that wide composting area.

 4 rows, 3 stand alone, 1 merged with composting bed.

 Cickens made some holes, ate some of my good earth worms (not happy, need those)

 

 2 different rows example, each one has 'chickenscaping'

 Water retention is good so, even after the chickenscaping.

60x60x60 cm holes where the stakes marking the grape holes are.... well were... placed...because chicken landscaped... are still to be done. The dirt was ok, but still a bit dry so these mounds are doing it's job softening the dirt, getting in there last 3 snows... Meaning it's about to be ready to do the dirt holes and put grape supports in the place (t-post tension wire, do not want to do treated wood for this.)
New Mars variety (pruned some more of mine, was sad to toss the wines, they made good cuttings...)

So these will be good for the autumn planting... or overwintering. It's ok variety for up here.
It's zone 5-8, it does not freeze in 5a-5b. Makes good grape jam and jelly. Makes good wine vinegar. Wine... yeah maybe, have to get to that.
Mars variety links
https://articles.extension.org/pages/67872/arkansas-table-grape-cultivars
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/care-mars-blue-grape-vines-55530.html
Mars cluster looks like so

If you do not have a green house N2 continued

If there is no green house some things can be used instead
Prev post shows the germination start
21 days later we have
lamps raised 3 times 2.5 or 1 inch each time give or take, now lamps are a bit higher than I like but with plants in this size I'm ok with that
Shop lights needs to be close to the plants, that prevents leggy plants.

 

Roots on tomatoes are good. Our spring is very very windy and 40-55mph winds afternoon are not unheard off (40+ is normal) by any means.  So tomatoes get berried a good bit int the dirt, aka planted deep. For that reason and to make lots and lots of roots to feed on that compost. And some carp caught by bow fishers in lakes (it's a junk fish, state pays folk to shoot it to control it in lakes, otherwise it overpowers all other fish and throws the lake of balance, they grow huge)... I get free and plant that fish in the dirt and tomato next or on top of it. Scandinavian fertilizer that works here very well, just have to keep coyotes out :) of it...


Grapes timeline:

started cuttings

 

They start like so, buds not captured, but with this method leaves going first is normal, what is not desirable is leaves and lots of them and not roots, aka lagging root development.

 To speed that up have to put heat mat under the box like so below

these are some struggles in the red box, and them in 4 days in red box planted, from struggles I lost 4 eventually, so only 2 made it to good size (losses within 1 month)

 In tubes, this way they stay put for 1 month at least. they need to have good bundle of roots. Be real careful transplanting them into XL 1 gallon pots

 Transplanted. These went into sunroom many times and came indoors under grow light (hooked to tripod... it holds it ok... but I would not use bogen for that :), it's a spare and has lost plate on it...)

So grapes were already adapted to sunroom and a bit outdoors.
I have 3 snow storms to go including this week before all the spring roller-coaster will settle more-or-less... we can get snow first week in June as well.

Grapes will be hardened in shade in 1-2 weeks, right now it's snow, so not a good time, but it will be all gone as usual in 1-2 days.

If you do not have a green house

set up is very simple and I found it working better in several years in a row compared to 200$+ grow lights
shop light (full spectrum), have full spectrum led -even better.
cinder block (2-6) to vary height
pvc pipe and angle joins, plastic, packing tape

the construction looks like so:
light goes on timer on cinder blocks, as the plants grow raise the light. this prevents leggy seedlings.

 

tarp for mess prevention. the seedlings are on rubber mud shes trays. no mess, wood floors are just fine

Vineyard N2

Several useful things about cordon training

Storing wine cuttings... for example this guy (ps we did not do that, our were refrigerated for a month, and they had mold and fungi issues which I did have to deal with potacium permangonite)

We did it in water

I did 3-4 in one cup, 2cm of water, water did have potacium permangonite. My cutting rooting was close to 80% meaning high

They were soaked in potasium permangonate (weak water) and shocked in stronger solution. if there was mildew potasium permangonite dip was repeated to kill the bad stuff (green sand filter stuff works well and very inexpensive, store away from kids etc proper precautions are always taken)

similar to this, not exact.

I did not do it in the dirt because I did not have the good heated set up. And water worked. It is very important to to dip the tops at least into bee wax.

this helps in arid climate a lot. and we had these on heat mat too after the buds broke. they were transplanted into dirt in tubes when the root was only 2.5 cm long or 3.5... very carefully.

After that they were there for a month and heat mat was removed

and only after that month (no touching let it be, and some still are let be as is) they were put into gallon pots and rooting till late May 

soil prep is going on for that while grapes are in green house type setting (aka sun room, not heated and watched closely)

Useful things about vineyard

These are table grape varieties.

Wine and vinegar varieties did produce last year. Even if Reliance and Mars are considered here table varieties.. I mean they are sweet and edible :)... I think f these as wine and vinegar varieties... 

We not much into the wine so, for cooking, makes real nice marinades and French sauces.

Table grapes are here. And bringing cutting last time worked badly, lots of fungi damage on them and We tried to follow this way.

and failed...miserably, there was fungi and mold and no clauses...

So I put that method aside as no go in my case. And instead I forced these cuttings in water, and we did deal with fungi and developing molds with potacium permangonite solution. 

The problems I did see was buds did open too early

But compared to prev nethod I'd say we were very successful indeed

Now useful thing regarding vineyard (organic, I'm going to go metal and how fences too... or the wire... still thinking), my other grapes are t-posts and hog panels trellis

I'm running not with the sun , I'm running with the slope and water.
So I'm not running north south, cause that would be with the slope of the water, so I'm running the way so my grapes do catch the water. And I tested east-west already and that's how my Mars is
And my Humrod is North-South (on flatter area and it's only 3 of them, so not long)
My reliance is also west-east. And I do not have long rows by any means, I do 3-4-5.

I'll do more on the vineyard later. For example my Mars is not trained as cordons...