Ground meets cultivator

FYI: Many of these first few posts will be coming one after the other because we are trying desperately to get up to date with the progress of the vineyard.

The soil in Culpeper County like most of Virginia, I imagine, needs lots of lime before it will support much life. Thanks to the scientists at Virginia Tech we added approximately 15 40 lbs. bags of pelletized limestone to the soil. A few bags were added several weeks ago and the remainder was added this past weekend, March 22, 2008.

This past weekend was also special because we rented a cultivator attachment for the tractor. Prior attempts with the push roto-tiller proved futile because the roots and rocks consistently broke the safety pins. Not the case with the cultivator, which was much more effective in getting deeper roots and really churning the soil. Virginia is cursed/blessed with heavy clay soil and the cultivator helped to break the first foot or so of that clay up.

The cultivator was used once over the entire plot to break up the ground and remove some of the larger roots. Limestone was then spread over the plot with the smaller tractor. This was followed by another run with the cultivator until we felt that the soil was sufficiently churned up and many of the roots had been brought to the surface.

We also used last Saturday to crudely mark how our rows will be arranged: we have decided on four rows of 15 plants each. I think the math means that each row will be approximately 90 feet long. We will have 8 feet between each rows and space the vines 6 feet from each other in the rows. We have 30 Vidal Blanc and 30 cabernet franc vines. We have not determined how we will arrange the two varietals yet.

The preliminary thinking on the trellis system is 8 end posts and 8 line posts: line posts will be situated after every 5 plants. This could change, but it is pretty standard.

The posts should be put in the ground with the the plants because doing so later after the plants are in the ground can disturb the plants and negatively effect their growth. Thus, we are going to get the posts and plants into the ground this weekend and worry about the wire later when the vines have matured.