Journal | May 1, 2024
Hot and Dry
Hot and dry is not normal for this time of the year. The vines are doing quite well with even growth, an abundant potential crop, and little disease pressure. But one can’t help from wondering how the rest of the season will unfold given the weather extremes of our new climate.
More and more we depend on daily observations rather than referring to a calendar of vineyard events. This year the vines, the cover crops, the weeds, and even the grass seem to be on their own schedule. Some of this can be attributed to last year's drought, some to a mild winter, but mostly to an early spring.
We started shoot thinning in the month of April for the first time ever. This is typically a mid-May task. (More on this later this week.) Each shoot is loaded with abundant clusters, so we are preparing for a large crop. One way of doing this is to reduce the number of shoots retained on each vine, so we are being very aggressive with our shoot thinning.
During winter pruning we observed that the vines were smaller than usual because of last year's drought. We just completed spreading many tons of compost throughout the vineyard to boost the vines for this season.
Frost threat seems to be over. The next weather worry will be hail. Never a dull moment.
Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Hardscrabble Journal: May 1, 2024