Vineyard databasing cont...

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Today I went out to the Ambers’ farm. When I arrived, Cliff broke out with the frozen Mackerel, which he nuked and sliced and placed in a glad tupperware container. I carried around the fish while he took down his home-maid bug traps that he had strung up in branches and placed all around their front yard area and around the vineyard. They consisted of empty vinegar jugs with four plastic bottle tops punched into the sides. The stinky fish was supposed to attract the bugs, and the little bit of vinegar/oil at the bottom is supposed to drown them once they get in, so they can’t get out. (The less bugs now, the less will be there to eat the grapes later in the growing season, hopefully.) A few traps seemed to be working. By the time we got around to them all the fish was thawing beautifully gooey in the sun. After that Cliff showed me what 10-10-10 fertilizer looks like—it looks like tiny bits of grey gravel or multi-sized kitty litter. He spread a handful on his potatoes. He then showed me what he uses to distribute the fertilizer on the vineyard. It’s just a little sac-type thing you sling over your shoulder with a mini handle turner that spins a ribbed disk that shoots the fertilizer out in front. You can actually see the areas of grass in the vineyard that were sprayed with the fertilizer from their darker colour. Amazing stuff for growing crops except for the fact that its production is heavily dependent on fossil fuels…hmm conundrum. We spent most of the day continuing to input into the vineyard database. We walked down rows 3 through most of 9 by the time the pocket computer’s battery died (though I don’t think my eyes could have lasted much longer squinting at the tiny reflective screen anyway). I plugged into the pocket computer the row, vine type, year it was planted, and distance from the first post. This Cliff measured using the cool and surprisingly accurate wheel-measuring device that he rolled along the vine row. While I was inputing data, Cliff nipped off the buds that were on the base of the vine (“suckers”). These buds receive nutrients first, so by taking them off, more nutrients would make it up along the vines on the wires, which is where he wants them to be fruitful. The vineyard’s starting to look green again! The shoots are several inches on the wires!