Journal | May 5, 2020

Hardscrabble Journal

Back to the Nursery

Replanting is done. Every winter vines are ordered from commercial nurseries to fill in for missing vines in the vineyard. Vines can be lost to equipment (especially mowers that try to get too close), disease (Grapevine Yellows in Chardonnay), and winter damage (we are still replacing vines damaged from the Polar Vortex of 2014). 

I hate holes (missing vines) in the vineyard. It bothers me a lot. There can be over 1,600 vines in one acre and all I can see is the blank spot where one should have been. So every year, just in case, I over order the amount of replacement vines I calculate we need for the upcoming spring.

We do two replantings. The first is when we are finishing pruning in early April. When pruning, we can tell if a vine is dead by the color of the cut wood (green vs. brown). Those vines are marked. The second pass of replants comes in early May, after bud break. If for any reason, a vine does not leaf out, it is dead and it is easy to spot and tag.

Today we planted “leftover” extra vines in our nursery, which is really just a big garden. The roots were trimmed back to just a few inches. Trenches were dug, and the vines planted just 6 inches apart. They’ll spend the season there and probably find a permanent home next year.

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Hardscrabble JournalJim LawVineyard Isolation, 2020