Saturday 10 March 2012

The vineyard anomaly

March 10th 2012
I have been managing my neighbours' vines for years and have one of my own plus 2 recently planted ones in another neighbour's garden, so getting quite good at it.
For some years, I have been aware of a vineyard planted within a local public park, so I decided to investigate it. It has scope for 96 vines, is enclosed by a 3 foot high wire fence with a padlocked gate. There are 12 rows of stout poles and wires to support the vines, in the classic double guyot system. An expensive professional installation. I counted 33 neglected vines which showed evidence of life, the rest were either completely dead, or missing. The grass around and between the rows was obviously maintained regularly. I collared a groundsman who said it was a 'grey area'. They cut the grass and he used to prune the vines, but had given up. He had no idea about how or why it came to be there, there was no reference to it on the park web pages and the parks department knew nothing about it. All that had been done and the reasons for doing it had somehow vanished. Such a waste.
One of my pipe dreams was to own a vineyard and make wine as a retirement project and here was one, not a mile from home, for the taking. I informed the local authority of my intention and got no response so no news is good news.
I fixed the fence and pruned the vines as best I could and they seem to be responding. I get the experience of ownership, without the liability and initial cost. Can't complain.


 The overview. Not much to see but the structures, and the fact that many vines are missing. There is a paved area where apparantly a shed once stood, but was destroyed by vandals. This incident, and the fact that many of the vines are missing, may account for the project being abandoned, some 3 years ago.



One of the 12 rows, showing the 2 most vigorous and healthy. I believe these are pinot noir, judging by the leaves and grapes last year and the shoots now. The vines were probably originally trained on the double guyot system. The one in the foreground had grown over to the next row, and it was very difficult to identify the two separate plants. There was an abandoned nest in there. Another, with white grapes, had climbed up a nearby tree. Only a few had fresh grapes, while many had dry, withered ones, possibly from the previous year, with evidence of mildew, which explains why they hadn't been eaten by birds. The black grapes were edible, but rather low in sugar, but the white ones weren't too pleasant.
Winter pruning consisted of removing non fruit-bearing, damaged and excessively long branches, and cutting back the rest to two buds, rather than trying to revert to the strictly double guyot method.
After pruning, there appeared to be 50 vines with potentially live buds, so I gave them all a handful of poultry manure pellets and hoped for rain.



Apart from 1 heavy downpour, there was no rain, and now there is a hosepipe ban. There is no water supply on the site.
On later inspection, only 24 are showing signs of life at present. The buds are like pinot noir. Many are definitely dead, but there are others which may be a late-budding variety, presumably white and possibly chardonnay. I should know by the end of April.
Rain at last and very high humidity. By no means drought busting, but enough to break up the manure pellets at least.

April 10
I took a moisture meter reading after rain and results were encouraging. The sap is rising in 25 healthy plants which I have secured with wire ties. I ripped out 6 dead plants, which came away with just a gentle tug.

Some History.


 This picture shows it in its prime in August 2008, less than 4 years ago.


This picture, taken by Stephen Skelton about 5 years ago, shows the vines in a healthy, but unpruned state.



However, this image, from June 2010, after it was abandoned, reveals a much depleted situation, down to about 60 vines. The colour of the grass suggests drought conditions. The white area is the site of the shed. The vineyard is no more than 15 years old. Vines remain commercially productive for at least 25 years, but need to be fed, watered, pruned and treated for pests and diseases. It is unlikely these ever got anything other than rainwater, as there is no water supply on the site. Even occasional watering would require hundreds of gallons to be transported and there is no access for vehicles, (except for park maintenance vehicles) other than a car park 200 metres away. Victims of global warming? Possibly. However there are strips of black polythene, about 2 feet wide, laid along some rows at the base of the vines and the whole of the rest of the site is covered in grass. So any rain would run off the plastic and into the grass, which would absorb any light shower. Only heavy sustained rain would get to the vine roots, and we don't get very much of that anymore in the Southeast. The plastic also prevents feeding the plants. It will have to come up.

May 1st.
After 4 inches of rain in as many weeks, the vines have been well fed and watered. There are now 31 active plants, though some more dead than alive.
The Council appear to have given up mowing between the rows, so I sent an email requesting that they keep it up and lo and behold, they not only moved between the the rows, they cut the weeds between the vines!

June 1st.
There now appear to be 28 active vines, 19 of which now carry flower buds, 500 bunches in total!
As advised, I am now clearing debris and weeds, to reduce the risk of a repeat attack of mildew. It's very hard work, as it has not been done for years. It involves rubbing off loose bark from the trunks, clearing away dead grass and dead vine stems, digging up live grass, dandelions, nettles, buttercups and other persistent weeds and piling it all up into mini compost heaps at the ends of the rows, supplemented with cut grass and uprooted weeds from around the verges.
The remaining living vines could be classified as follows:
Vigourous and productive
Productive in a limited way
Regenerating but unproductive
Struggling.

June 23rd.
The parks department seemed to have stopped cutting the grass again, but on request, they responded.. However, with a lot more rain it's overgrown quickly, so I bought a petrol-powered strimmer from a boot fair to deal with the problem myself. It works for about half an hour and then pegs out, due to overheating, I think, because if left for a while, it then works fine, but basically it's a small garden tool being used for a semi-agricultural job, so fair enough. It's not a lawnmower!
The vines have responded well to pruning and feeding and have expanded to fill about 50% of the space. The next step is to dig up all the weeds and cover the space with weed control fabric. This is a big job and progress is slow but the vineyard is now looking very good.

This picture shows one of the few rows which has the black plastic still intact and, for that matter, most of the vines too, probably pinot noir, and well recovered after pruning and feeding.


No black plastic weed control but nonetheless a vigourous revival.

July 1st.
Got the petrol strimmer working much better now, so back to weed control. Weeds, in the form of couch grass, dandelion, creeping buttercup. nettle, thistle, daisy and a number of others, deprive the vines of moisture and nutrients, while the associated debris around them harbours pathogens.

July 5th.
A sad fairy tale, it seems. It's the last vestige of an allotment site which the council were closing down, but an adjacent couple of tenants held out. The 2 plots remained but the council cut off the water supply.
The 2 plots had been merged into a vineyard and the couple were celebrated in the Mail on Sunday for producing the first Isleworth wine.
However, maybe vandalism and drought led them to abandon the project, according to a local who lives across the road, who has offered me the use of his standpipe, which is very kind.
Ironically, too much rain seems to have adversely affected pollination, so I don't expect much of a crop.
Today, an arabic woman asked for a kilo of leaves so she could stuff them with rice and promised to give me some dolmades in return. I partially obliged and later tightened up the wires on the fence.
Weed control fabric does not prevent dandelions from regenerating, so I have gone for adding 'bark' chips on top. With their club card, you can get 5 x 60 litre bags from Wyvales for £16. I solved the problem of delivery by opening an unlocked park gate and boldly driving the car up to the plot to drop them off. Who dares wins!

July 9th.
Mildew is spreading. The systhane I used is effective against powdery mildew but not downy mildew, so I will spray with dithane, which is also effective against deadarm.
Gets more interesting. After the reference to an article in the Mail on Sunday, a search took me to the website of Hazel Murray, a Sky TV weather presenter. She and someone called Dominic set up the vineyard in 1997 from 2 allotments and produced 29 bottles of Redlees Rose Razzamatazz pink sparkling wine in 1999, at a cost of £100 per bottle! She admits that the choice of varieties may have been unwise, as they ripen at different times. Riesling is not considered suitable for the UK as it requires a long growing season.
I had correctly identified one grape variety as pinot noir, but was surprised to find the whites as riesling and a second, red-fleshed red as dunkelfelder, a new one to me, but hardly surprising, as it is uncommon outside of Germany, and not too many of us have experienced German red wine! Hazel's account of the origins of the vineyard can be found at her website:
 http://www.hazelmurray.com/vineyardvision/vineyard-story.php
Today, I started spraying with dithane but ran out, only to find that the manufacturers, Bayer, have withdrawn the product. Fortunately Bordeaux mixture, a copper spray, is still available and does the same job. To my amazement, a young German woman came up and enquired. It turns out she has a 3 hectare vineyard back home of red grapevines!
Some of the grape 'buds' are starting to develop, but most are not, and many are turning brown and dropping. No response from Ms Murray but hardly surprising. Her website is quite old, she may be on holiday and even if she was aware of my request for info, she might be fearful of contacting a potential stalker, considering what happened to Gill Dando.
I carry on regardless but an interesting legal question arises. If I change to gate lock and 'occupy' for a year, do I get squatter's rights? If you seize and occupy land, it becomes your own. Property is theft. Having invested time, effort and money into the project, I could have nightmares of it being bulldozed by the council one day. No reason why they would do that, though, especially if I keep my head down.
This downy mildew is nasty stuff. So nasty in fact that the dithane produced to combat it is so nasty, it had to be withdrawn. I now believe this was what destroyed 70% of the vineyard, with the help of drought and a failure to feed and properly prune.

July 14
Thought I would get more chips while the offer was still on. It doesn't go far. As a decorative covering, a 60 litre bag does 1.5 m2, but as weed control, 2 inches thick, only 0.75 m2.
2 days ago, just as I was leaving, 2 men arrived in a pickup truck, announcing they had come to cut the grass, 3 weeks since the last time. They had no key but had been told the fence unhooks, the machinery being too heavy to lift over. So it was the council workers who had cut the fence, reducing its security value to almost zero! Mind you, it only took a few minutes to unscrew the padlocked bolt, so I bought a secure hasp and staple with hardened stainless steel padlock, bring costs to date up to £285, the most expensive item being the petrol strimmer at £65.
The next day I found they had done a good job. My regular foot traffic keeps the grass down on the central pathways, but elsewhere it gets very long, very quickly.
I planted the pinot noir which had self propagated, so now there are 30 vines, although there are no grapes on the riesling or dunkelfelder, talking of which, it is a variety which is troublesome, of low vigour and low cropping. The 4 remaining of the original 32 have discoloured leaves and look weak. I can't imagine why they were chosen.
The Bordeaux mixture is tricky. It comes in a puffer pack but then you are told it's best to mix it with water and spray it on. It doesn't mention that it is not soluble and quickly settles at the bottom of the sprayer, which I realised when the leaves looked like they had been splattered with blue paint! You have to keep agitating it.

It's all quite curious, which is why it is interesting. Why would someone invest £3000 to convert 2 allotment plots into a vineyard? There is a strong media element in it. Martyn Doubleday, Sky TV wine expert, was heavily involved and their headquarters is in Osterley, a couple of miles away. Remember programmes like Ground Force, in which a team transform an ordinary garden into something quite spectacular? The high poles and wires are visually impressive. This whole project may have been funded by Sky TV for a gardening program. These programs make no reference to the cost of materials and labour, or the long term sustainability and maintenance overheads. They give the impression that it's so easy, but when you try it yourself, you just feel inadequate!
Mr Doubleday took over Hidden Springs vineyard and turned it into a visitor attraction, with campsite and animals. He admits that the vineyard element is now small and unproductive.
The choice of vines now falls into perspective. Riesling is popularly associated with the cheap, sweet 'hock' so favoured by the wine incogniscenti as an alcoholic step up from lemonade, but this is ignorance. The highly respected wine expert, Jancis Robinson, regards riesling as the best wine of all. Pinot noir has plenty of street cred and dunkelfelder is eclectic by being little know, but actually pretty crap. Putting the 3 together in the UK is both adventurous and stupid. But that's media for you. Grabs the headline and forgotten the next day.

July 23
Of the 500 potential bunches, only 225 remain, most of which are on the 2 vigourous pinot noirs and these are the only ones which show signs of swelling, while the others look disturbingly grey.
All but these 2 vines are clearly grafted, including the dead ones. Grafting became fairly standard practise as a way off preventing phylloxera, but as this problem is rare in the UK, not really neccessary. The grafted plants have thick swollen bulb a couple of inches above ground and a narrow trunk below to the roots, whereas those on their own roots have considerably thicker trunks, greater mildew resistence and vigour. However they may still have been grafted, with the graft at soil level which actually negates the graft. Grafted plants may fail due to graft failure within 20 years but ungrafted ones can live for centuries. My Wrotham pinot, English grown, is ungrafted and is doing really well, with 125 healthy bunches after only 6 years.
It therefore makes sense to propagate from the 'ungrafted' pinot noirs to replace the missing vines.

After considerable rainfall, the beds without any form of moisture and weed control have rapidly gone from wet to moist after just a few days without rain. It has taken many hours to remove couch grass and dandelions from just 4 rows, before laying down weed control fabric and bark chips.

July 26
I have been removing leaves to expose the grapes to the sun. Taking a closer look, many of the oldest leaves are showing signs of decay, due to wind and mildew, so I am removing the worst affected ones. Most of the newer ones look healthy, but those on the shoots with mottled stems are pale and weak, so I think I will remove the whole shoot. Fortunately there are not too many of them.
The brief hot and dry spell has got me worried about the lack of water supply. I have found a cover plate in the adjacent pavement and a drain cover not far away, so this is where the mains supply fed the tap in the allotments. The next step is to use a metal detector to find where the pipes run and hopefully find one within the vineyard.

July 31
I managed to catch the council crew. They had done an even better job than before and I was able to give them the new gate key, so next time they wouldn't have to wreck the fence to get in.
But sadly, there is nothing much to protect. Most of the grapes are covered with a grey coating, under which is a brown colour and as they swell, they split, like mini lentils. There will be no harvest of any consequence this year. Downy mildew, if left unchecked, gets into the soil and becomes endemic to the plant and can persist up to 5 years! I have removed most of the debris frrom the whole plot and am concentrating it into a single pile in a corner away from the vines. All the affected leaves and stems will be added, along with prunings.
Dithane was withdrawn as it turned out to be carcinogenic. Bayer have replaced it with a copper compound but state that they have no current products specifically against downy mildew. However I read that myclobutanil, the active ingredient in their Systhane, is effective.  Next year I must start spraying much earlier.
Recent light rain has revealed that the large, vigourous vines deflect water away from the beds and onto the grass verge edges. The combination of this and the shade effectively keeps weeds down where there was no black plastic cover. They thrived where vines had died and there was no plastic, or it was torn. I am somewhat puzzled as to why the plastic is more or less intact in some rows and apparantly fairly neatly cut away in others.
It seems to make sense to use the plastic after initial digging, manuring and planting to prevent weed germination and gravel would be preferable between the rows, rather than bare earth or grass. It was probably bare earth originally, being an allotment and self seeded with grass from the surrounds, along with dandelion, buttercup, etc.
I have cut back the vines so now they look like hedgerows and it now looks more like a proper vineyard.
I got some more bark from Wyvales and while I was there, I spotted some Regent vines, complete with a bunch of grapes. This is a newish black variety. I have one at home and last year it produced 2 bunches of high sugar grapes by the end of September. It is said to make good wine, but as to whether this is a good red or a blanc de noir remains to be seen. Those available were British grown, but grafted, 2 year olds. However at £10, I had to buy one and planted it in one of the vacant riesling rows. This brings to costs to £325, with no prospect of a crop, but to put this in perspective, I pay no rent for the land, the park staff cut the grass for free, the poles, wires, fence and gate are in place and there are 32 vines.

August 16
As there is not much to do to the vines, I cleared the empty row of the weeds etc. and made a compost heap in a corner of the fence and a pile of woody prunings for burning. I now have 2 more vines, another regent plus an unidentified, ungrafted black from a boot fair for £6. From the description, I think it's a brant, which is vigourous. The grapes are not noted for wine, but I see no reason why they can't be blended with others. It then occurred to me that it would be interesting to populate the vacant spaces with other varieties, such as pinot blanc.
I managed to pick up some more weed control fabric and some netting, enough to be getting on with. I also picked up an aquaroll. It looks like a lawn roller, but is designed to transport 20 litres of water which will help with irrigation.
The centre post in one row is missing, so I bought a metpost and a 7ft 10 inch fencepost, which just about fits diagonally in my saloon car. It needs to be cut to 7 feet and I managed to pick up an electric saw which can cut through 3 inches for £20. Costs are now over £400 but that's still under £11 per vine so far.
The new regent vine I planted came with a bunch of semi ripe grapes which has now been stripped clean by birds so it's time to get the netting in place. 4 packs of 2 x 6 metres are required per row. Each has to be attached at one end, top and bottom and stretched out. The top is then fixed to the upper wire at 1 foot intervals using twist ties and the bottom hooked onto the lowest part of the vine. The oppoiste side is fixed in the same way, using the same twist ties and wherever possible, the two sides are joined together at the bottom. At harvest time, the nets will be rolled up and secured to the top wire and remain there until the following summer pruning. To protect all the rows, a total of about 500 square metres would be required!
I discovered dozens more of the brown scale insects but they must be dead as they were on dead, cut stems and therefore cannot feed on the sap.

August 25
A lucky find in a 99p shop: 2 x 10 metre plastic netting. 2 of these is almost enough to cover an entire row, both sides.
Even more brown scale insects found on all but 2 vines, which must be active, because they only reveal themselves as they develop by splitting the thin bark layer. I found an insecticide called Provado, which claims to be effective against scale by virtue of being systemic. Not cheap at £9, but makes up 27 litres.
I noticed that the leaves of the first row of riesling are now showing signs of thirst, turning yellow and then brown at the edges. The grass is also dry and lacking vigour. I blame this on the proximity of a row of trees. Although there was considerable rain up untill the end of July, the first 3 weeks in August produced a mere 4 mm., with a few very hot and dry days. However, the other rows are still lush.

August 31
Cleared enough of the dead row to plant a regent vine with the classic double guyot profile.

September 16
Most discouraging. Quite clearly, there will be no harvest this year. The remaining grapes have either split or stopped developing. One vine has clearly died and another is on its way out while another's leaves are rapidly turning red and dying. There has been less than 10 mm of rain in the last 6 weeks.
Hopefully the vines are growing out of their afflictions and with radical pruning and good hygene, will produce some kind of useable crop next year.
There still remain 5 rows which need to be cleared of couch grass, etc, and at the present rate, this will take several months to complete.
The best news is that the parks manager is committed to keeping the grass cut and even personally apologised for the fact that it is not done every 2 weeks, due to staff shortages.

September 22
The task of clearing the weeds and covering is getting very tedious. It takes a couple of hours to clear 1 square metre. The ground is dry and hard so I filled the Aquaroll and soaked the next section to be dug, which helped, and have planted an extra 3 vines, bringing the total to 33, accounting for the 2 recent deaths.
I have started to roll up the netting, as there are no grapes worth protecting. This has revealed even more brown scale insects. I am wondering to what extent they are responsible for the demise of so many of the original vines. A heavy infestation is associated with a sticky black mould, which I did not detect, but an adult female can lay thousands of eggs and the young, which initially attack the underside of leaves, are only 1 mm long. Many of the leaves are blackened. A thorough winter wash supposedly kills the eggs, while Provado ultimate bug killer, a systemic pesticide, should kill both young and adults.
All but one of the rieslings are already starting to shed dying leaves. I suspect I may have to replace them, but finding suitable vines is proving difficult.

October 27
I had got rather dispirited by the hard work and the prospect of no harvest at all to show for it, so I concentrated closer to home. I harvested the large chardonnay in my neighbour's garden. In the last 2 years I got 6 gallons each time. This year, 1 gallon. My own Wrotham pinot, which yielded a gallon last year, produced double the amount of bunches but still only 1 gallon, and poorer quality. The rain count for the year so far is now 16 inches!
I gritted my teeth and paid a visit to the vineyard. The only positive was that the grass looked really good. I suspected that building a compost heap against the fence might prove a security risk and I was right. The top wire had been damaged and there were footprints on the top of the heap. An attempt had been made to push over one of the centre poles and a vine which had regenerated from its roots had been severed near the base. Another pole had snapped at the base and was only held up by the wires it was meant to support. All the leaves had gone from the rieslings, leaving just branches and shriveled grapes. Today is wet, windy and cold, and the clocks go back tonight.
A ray of sun appeared in the form of a long and positive reply, finally, from Hazel Murray, who has moved to Italy. As far as taking over the project, she has given me her blessing, which is very cheering!

November 8
After some nasty weather, it was a mild and sunny day so I went down to do some work. Thankfully no sign of further vandalism and I repaired the fence. I rolled up the netting on the first row of rieslings, fixed it in place and pruned the vines. This was straightforward. The next row was more of a challenge. Hazel informed me that there was a fragolino (aka. strawberry vine) and this appeared to be it, as it had neither the characteristics of the riesling or pinot noir. It's pretty vigorous and produced about 9 bunches of grapes, which failed like all the rest. Pruning was complex and I gave up. I discovered even more brown scale mature insects and dislodged them. All of the prunings were dumped onto the bonfire pile.
I am pleased to say that the weed control system has proved highly effective. Only a few weeds survived and these have been plucked out by the roots. The compost heap has rotted down nicely and eventually will be safe to add to the beds, which are devoid of organic matter.

November 26
While pruning the other day, I was approached by an old local who gave me an interesting piece of information. As a result of German bombing raids, places had to found to dump rubble and the human remains which could not separated from it. One such site, a gravel pit, was what was to become Redlees park allotments. I had wondered why I had been unearthing bits of brick, tile, slates, broken glass and bones. Most allotment plants grow to a depth of about 1 foot, but mature vines can send roots 4 feet deep. Considering all the possible contaminants, almost certainly including lead, asbestos and human remains in the rubble, this could account for the dead, dying and diseased vines and why the allotments were closed at a time when demand was high.
Not quite a 'Poltergeist' scenario, more of a poison chalice, however there are a few mysteries. Why did the shed, and its replacement, burn down? Vandals, probably. Why, despite meticulous pruning, feeding, weeding and spraying did every single emerging grape wither? Why did the gate padlock, for which I had no key, unlock itself while I was talking a passer-by, who I have never seen since, and for that matter, why do I keep being approached by old residents who I only ever see once? And why did one of the dead vines, completely rotted away at the base, miraculously regenerate from dead roots, only later to appear to have been cleanly severed at ground level? Why do the Council have no records or information about the vineyard, which does not feature on their park website and why do the parks department take the trouble to maintain the grass around the vines, with no suggestion of charging rent for the land? It's all a bit strange.

5 Jan 2013
Weather has been so bad, I've not been to visit till last week. Very cold but no rain, as such. All leaves have vanished, so no clearing up to be done. Time to start winter pruning, but first I have to roll back the netting and tie it in place, which is more time consuming than I expected.
I start the usual pruning strategy, but this time I am looking out for potential cuttings. Ideally, these are 12 inches long, pencil-thick and have 4 healthy looking buds. Last year, I discarded all of the prunings, but this year I have loads to choose from, so something at least has been gained from an otherwise grim year. I plant 17, 2 feet apart in the prepared beds, all pinot noir. If they take, I will have productive vines in 5 years from them, giving me a total of 50, but this is still only half  the original number.


                                                                Cuttings in place.

Then I discover a potential shortcut. A 5 acre vineyard in Suffolk, whose NT lease expires next month, is trying to find homes for its vines and is apparantly giving them away to people who are prepared to help dig them up and take them away. These are mature vines, between 8 and 16 years of age in 4 varieties, including pinot noir. Instant free productive vines? Not exactly. There is a cover charge of £10 each plus £15 each to have them dug up and delivered, less an allowance of 1 free if you order more than 5, as the transplant success rate is 85%. The pinot noirs cannot be dug up as their roots extend under a wall, but there are plenty of rondos, which ripen earlier and are mildew resistant red hybrids. I have to pay in advance, drive 100 miles, dig them up, pack them into my car, drive home, take them to my vineyard, dig large holes, add bonemeal, plant them and prevent them from producing grapes this year. I estimate that I could manage 10. Including the cost of petrol, thats about £13 each and lots of hard work, within a tight timescale. It also brings the total cost to date of about £800, without a single ripe grape produced! It's like vanity publishing transposed to viticulture, but in this case, even more absurd. I set myself up as a publisher for £50 and have 7 titles which have sold in very limited numbers for a net loss, but at least there were products and a limited revenue stream from them. I set up as an IT consultant and kept that afloat for 16 years. I made some wise investments which have left me modestly cash rich and debt free in my semi retirement, but this venture, in cash terms, is a total loss!

13th January
As it is pretty cold, I have postponed the plan to dig up the mature vines and concentrate on completing the pruning, this time more thoroughly, including surgically removing old stubs, stripping away loose bark, which has revealed a few more adult brown scale insects, removing unproductive 'water spouts' from lower down the trunks and generally creating a more open structure to the vines.
Intruders are still using the compost heap as an easier point of entry, so it will have to go. The best use would be to fill the various hollows in the grass to make mowing more efficient.
The rainfall total since last March is now 75 cms.


All the dead wood and prunings removed and ready for burning. In  the background, a composting heap of leaves, grass cuttings and weeds, roughly a ton of it!

24 January
Hopefully the recent big freeze has put paid to bugs and diseases and now that milder weather is on its way, the undercutting of the mature rondo vines in the Suffolk vineyard should go ahead next week, so I now plan to go ahead and salvage 16 of them. This will bring total costs to £600 and will involve lots of hard work in February, but given the spacings involved, this will restore the vineyard much closer to full capacity.
If I applied for a farming subsidy, I would get the grand sum of £7 per annum! So much for the myth that farmers get paid to do nothing under the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

28 January
I now have a date to collect the mature vines and the availability of a small van too. It is recommended that I use Rootgrow, some sort of fungal culture to give them the best chance of re-establishing, and as I had some vouchers to redeem, I went to the garden centre. It's not cheap at £11 for 260 grams, so I was glad of the vouchers and also picked up 3 vines for £5 each and 4 x 60 litre bags of bark chips, about £35 in all. The vines are seedless, 2 reds (flame) and 1 white. They are primarily table grapes but can be used for wine. I noted that Bordeaux mixture is now back on the shelves. Apparantly, I need training and a license to spray chemicals in a public park.
I drove directly to the vineyard to unload and found the gate open and the padlock locked to the drawbolt. Nothing had been disturbed and the grass had not been cut, which is the only reason park staff would have to open the gate. Strange. The other odd thing was that the bucket was bone dry, despite all that snow.
I checked the cuttings, which seemed unbothered by the frost and snow, deployed 2 bags of chips, planted one of the vines and started pruning, before a cold wet northerly wind kicked in and, despite the wellies and waterproofs, it got too grim to continue as the wind gathered force. Nonetheless, a productive morning. In fact the only one this month!
I conclude that the 2 largest vines are in fact the fragolinos, 'strawberry grape,' that Hazel mentioned, on account of their very large leaves and midew resistence. They are far more productive, vigourous and healthy than the rest, but but their winemaking potential is somewhat doubtful.



February 5th
Adverse weather put me off collecting the 16 rondos from the Suffolk vineyard but they were so disappointed that I felt guilty of being so wimpy. Bad weather can be countered by good clothing and attitude. However, the logistics are formidable. For best results, the vines must be dug up and transplanted the same day. This requires digging up 2 tonnes of earth and filling it back in, in harsh conditions, having done a 200 mile round trip and digging up the vines, at a cost of around £200, with no prospect of a harvest for at least a year! I would need a mini JCB to dig the holes in time, adding to the cost, which has already risen to £455 with the purchase of an old grape mill from a boot fair for £20. Adding it all up, it's approaching £700 and still not a grape in sight. How to make a small fortune: invest a large fortune in a dream!

February 19th
The mini JCB was not on. Too expensive and the wires would have got in the way. Enter my son, Rowan. We went up there, dug up 16 vines, packed them into the car, drove back and planted them all, in the dim glow of the street lights.
The weather next day was appalling, but at least it watered the roots.



The transplanted rondos in the light of day, filling gaps left by dead dunkelfelders.

A break in the weather encouraged me to dig more holes and get more vines, which is exactly what I did, adding another 10.


Holes prepared for second batch. The earth piled on both sides onto stout plastic sacks is easily tipped back in once the vines are in place.


On the left, the newly transplanted bacchus vines. Centre, new young vines.

Time for review. I started work on this project a year ago. Hundreds of hours work and £730 investment have yet to produce a single ripe grape. A speculative investment with no financial return in the first year. The site has been cleaned up, most of the repairs are completed, half of the dead vines have been replaced at very reasonable cost and an innovative weed control system has proved its worth and is 50% installed.




All neat, tidy, substantially renovated and replanted, but plenty more work to be done.
The great news is that I am now in touch with a viticulture consultant, Stephen Skelton, who lives in West London and is happy to give me some advice in return for information about the site. He discovered the site in 2007, got some information from Hazel's website and entered the details in the UK Vineyards Guide 2010, which he edits, including an appeal for information as to who was now tending it. So now he knows and he paid a visit and gave me some advice on pruning the old vines and, given the problems I had with pests, diseases and bad weather, recommended I plant seyval blanc vines, which he could supply, in the vacant spaces, because of their reliability and resistence. He is writing a book and says my account is worthy of a chapter in it.
Looking through the guide, I discovered that there are number of other allotment and similar-sized vineyards around not far from me which would probably be worth visiting.

Feb 28th
Last year I bought a data logger for a project which didn't happen, but now I have a use for it. As the soil temperature rises, there comes a point when buds start to burst. At the same time the air temperature can fall and destroy these buds. So I have inserted a temperature sensor in the earth and another at 1 metre above ground. It is immediately obvious that the ground is twice as warm as the air at the moment, due to the chill factor of the wind. However if the wind drops and the sun comes out, the air temperature can soar while below ground it takes more time to respond. My weather station has a temperature sensor which is screened from both sun and wind and currently reads 5 c., whereas my sub soil and exposed air temperature sensors read 4, in very light wind. As the wind increases, the air temperature drops significantly compared to the temperature a few inches below ground. The object of the exercise is to determine the point at which the buds burst, but more critically, an indication of a potential frost to destroy them. Not that there is much I could do about it, but at least I would have some idea of the conditions and the possible outcomes.
I don't think these adverse conditions applied last year. The buds were very lively and everything looked so promising, only to crash so spectacularly. However, the adverse conditions from June onwards, too much rain and too little sun, not only affect the current year's fruit but also the following year. Plant health is the key, and I think the bio-dynamic approach is the way forward. I have used it before with good results and it's time I used it again.

Another centre pole has snapped at the base, and I suspect more will follow, as the ground has been wet for a whole year. Seems they generally last 10-20 years. The centre poles take most of the strain, from the prevailing westerly winds when the vines are in full leaf. This may account for why the westernmost row has no surviving vines, and the next 3 in have in total only 4 remaining and a missing pole, confirming my conclusion as to the reason for their demise. The east is somewhat protected by low trees, but these shade the first 3 rows from morning sun, and Stephen suggested this was why the Rieslings weren’t doing too well.


The 2010 aerial view showing how the wind has progressively cut swathes through the vines. The top left arrow shows how, as the damage moves on, a funnel effect develops, making the damage even worse. On the right (east) the shadows of the trees show the protection they provide from easterly winds and also how they deprive sunlight. It seems there was a severe late frost in May that year, which certainly would have damaged emerging buds or worse.

The same image has been edited to reflect the situation a year later (2011). The leftmost (western) row has been completely destroyed, with only 4 remaining in the next 3 rows, while the righmost (eastern) row is intact. The wind theory does not, however, account for all damage, but late spring frost damage the previous year would have been a significant factor.
Prior to last spring (2012) there had been 16 months of exceptional drought. This means that in spring 2011, the roots would have been rather dry and exceptionally dry in 2012, so the plants would have undergone water stress in 2 successive springs. When the rain finally came, it would have taken some time for it to reach the vine roots on account of the rampant weeds taking up the moisture. Although the rainfall was exceptionally high, it was in fact only 25% higher than average for the area.

A brushwood screen fixed to the west fence may help protect new plantings, or bring down the fence! My garden faces north and when I moved in there were only open mesh low fences. One new neighbour stupidly erected a six foot high fence, with wooden posts and panels, only half of which remain, due to the westerly winds!


The Ickworth vineyard I visited was surrounded with a 10 foot high brick wall. It was also on a south facing slope. The slope makes no difference in summer, but a huge difference in spring and autumn, when the sun is lower. They made prizewinning wines. An ideal site, apart from being on NT property, who forced its closure after 16 years. However, they only charged £150 pa rent and regularly cut the grass for free, but the downside was they insisted on buying all the wine at wholesale price and selling it at retail, resulting in the leaseholders making money out of the venture in just 2 of the years!

March 3rd
My oldest grandchild and only granddaughter's 8th birthday. Another trip to the boot fair. Enough USB extension cable to permananly connect my local weather station to the laptop and a roll of chicken wire. The vendor for the latter also had some flywheels, one of which could have been fitted to my grape mill, but seemed too heavy and was rather expensive. Interestingly his father imports grapes from Sicily for under £1 per kilo and makes over 400 bottles of wine per year.
Cheap netting has now appeared in th 99p shop, although you now get less for your money. Instead of the 10 x 2 metres, you now get 6 x 1.5, which is not quite wide enough. Alternatively you can get 4 x 2, which works out 2.5 times the cost of last year's offering, but has reinforced edges and is much easier to handle. It works out at just under £6 per row, so I bought 6 plus a small pruning saw: total: £7.
I also found the same weather station that I have at home for only £59, which was rather tempting but may also tempt thieves if installed on the site. The fact that it is of no value without the remote recorder and software would be no deterrent. The idea would be to install the recorder at ground level in a rainproof box, disguised with weed control fabric, so that it would record soil data as 'indoor' data. As the site is rather more exposed than my garden, the microclimate would be different in terms of wind and associated chill factor and it would be interesting to compare the two. It would also look very professional! Commercial sites use rather more sophisticated units which can be monitored from home and even send a text message to your mobile to warn of impending frosts, but without the means to heat the air to prevent frost damage, this facility would be of no use to me!
I have found the blogsite for the organic vineyard at Albury, also on blogspot. They have adopted a similar weed control system to mine, but instead of fabric, they use a layer of compost beneath the woodchips. I have always found that good composting is well worth the effort in gardening and if neglected, you get poor results. However, it can result in recycling weeds and disease if done badly. Composted weeds and grass cuttings, topped up with kitchen waste, including meat and fish waste, produces fairly low nutrient, but highly organic material, which encourgages and helps sustain organisms which in turn benefit the plants you are cultivating. For example, I planted potatoes because the method of cultivation helps to clear a neglected plot of weeds and debris. Traditionally it is considered unwise to continue to plant potatoes in the the same plot year after year, as this encourages blight and gives diminishing yields. However, I have replanted seed potatoes in the same plot for 3 years with good results and I put this down to good composting, plus chicken manure pellets.
The same should hold true for the vineyard, but as yet, I have not applied the principal. Simple soil analysis shows a complete absence of organic material below the surface. All you do is put some soil in a jar, add water, shake it up and let it settle overnight. You should see 3 layers: heavy material, such as stones, grit and sand on the bottom; finer stuff, such as clay above it and fibrous material on top, some of which will float. There was no 3rd layer in my samples.
I have a ton of composted material on site, but it is, in my view, somewhat toxic at present, full of noxious spores, pest eggs, weed seeds and roots which I have toiled long and hard to remove. Understandably I am reluctant to put it all back!
So when I saw 150 litres of compost at Tesco for £10, plus a £3 discount is you spent £20 on your total grocery bill, the decision was clear! Total spend now £752. The compost will not go far, half a row at best. I will spread it over the bare earth of the newly planted rondos which will then get covered in fabric and a thick layer of chips, which I will have to buy.

March 9th
Since there was only 1 weather station left at £59, the nearest equivalent being £99, the choice was clear, buy now, pushing costs to £811.
It is virtually identical to my home one, but works on a different frequency. There are installation issues. The location will be on a central post, obviously, attached with the supplied cable ties as the hoseclips are too small to fit round the post. This makes it more vulnerable to theft, even though the unit is of no value without the remote recorder, but thieves won't know that. So the plan is to drill a hole through the post, thread a security cable through, wrap it around the mast between the sensors and secure it with a padlock. Better than nothing.
The next issue is the location of the remote unit. I have an old wooden sherry presentation case with a sliding perspex cover which seems to be pretty weatherproof and the unit fits in snugly. As a precaution, I have enclosed that in a resealable clear plastic bag. This will render the 'indoor' humidity value useless, but I am only interested in the ground temperature and for this it should be buried, which would probably cut the radio signal, so it will have to be partially buried and covered to protect it from direct sunlight and theft. Opaque black plastic sheet will suffice, disguised with a sprinkling of bark chips. Hopefully any potential thief would be working in the dark and find it hard to locate, assuming they even know what to look for.
There is another issue. The software supplied is identical to the home unit and is incapable of distinguishing input from another unit, and so needs to be installed on a different PC, ideally a laptop which can be taken on site to periodically download the data before the memory gets full. Fortunately I have one on indefinite loan, so no extra expense there, for the time being.
Analysing last year's home data, I found that last May, the conditions were ideal for the emerging buds, being both warm and dry, but the conditions in June, when the flowers form and need to pollinate, were cool and very wet. 4 inches of rain fell and the average temperature was below 20 c. The pollen tends to get washed away and mildew thrives, which is what happened. The midsummer period was reasonably warm, but still unusually wet, which favours vigourous leaf and stem growth rather than fruit and also further suits powdery mildew. The autumn was very wet and cool, which would not have suited ripening of the fruit, had there been any.
Because the vineyard is far more exposed than my garden, the vines will get more spring and autumn sun but are also subject to the full force of the wind, which both reduces the temperature and 'burns' the leaves.

I thought it wise to buy more netting while stocks of the cheap stuff were available, inevitably to find there was little left. However, Aldi was selling twin packs of 10 x 2 metre 12 mm mesh netting, including clips, for £5. The clips are really just tent pegs and of no use as the netting does not reach the ground, unless I attach guy ropes, which is worth considering as this will improve stability when the weight of the vines should be at their peak. Anyway, add £12 to the total: £823.
Aldi also sell cheap compost and bark chips but, as the bags are relatively small, no cheaper than other sources. Also Wyvales have the right kind of trolleys, no checkout queues, offer decent discounts for their gardening club members and even the over 60's, offer a good range of grapevines for £10 or less, serve breakfast and the store is close to the vineyard. No contest really!

March 10th
Rooting around at the local boot fair I found 2 old metal hose clips which are big enough to fix the weather station to one of the posts. They are really hard to adjust, which means, after some further corrosion, they will be very hard to remove. This is clearly a more secure option than using the nylon cable clips, which I will also use, along with the padlock and cable, and a personal alarm, which will be activated if the cable is disturbed. While I am at it, I may as well install a battery operated PIR sensor LED security light, which will illuminate a dummy security camera. A bed of long rusty nails around the post is a tempting thought too!

March 13th
After a particularly vicious blast of arctic weather, 6 degrees seemed quite balmy, so I set out to complete the pruning of the home vines. I pretty much completed the huge white one, then turned my attention to the cabernet sauvignon. This has tended to grow into the next garden and up into the trees, somewhat unproductively. Any grapes produced have been exposed and consumed by birds, so I managed to move the branches back under the pergola, pointing inwards, in the hope that I may be able to install netting over the top.
In the process, I have a considerable amount of vine prunings to burn.

March 18th
Weather station installed, padlocked, alarmed and working, with the base station concealed, waterproofed and recording. Quite a project in its own right!



Meanwhile, back down to earth. I have deployed the compost on some of the newly dug earth, covered some with fabric and got some more 'bark' chips, but the heavens opened before I could get very far deploying that.
While getting the chips, I checked to see which vines were currently on offer, just out of interest. One item of interest was the 'strawberry' grape, described as 'gold/bronze outdoor dessert grape'. The vines I thought were these produced black grapes in 2011, so they are not the 'fragolinos' but, presumably pinot noir of possibly a different strain from the rest. Also the flame seedless is now described as an indoor dessert grape. The only appropriate wine vine available was a single phoenix, at £11, which I did not buy.
With vouchers, I got 4 x 60 litre bags of chips for £13.50, so total now £836.50. Loads more bags of these and compost are still needed, plus another post and metpost, so it won't be long before costs rise to £900.

March 19th
Quite a day. 4 visitors. The first was a park employee who told me I was lucky to have the vineyard and was eulegising about some Bordeaux wine he got in an auction at £12 a bottle. The second was an old timer from Bath, asking me what kind of trees I was growing. We had a discussion about the motivation of vandals. The third was a somewhat curious character, bearing what appeared to be a shepherd's crook. He said he was a retired maker of stained glass windows and informed me that grapevines contravened allotment regulations. We discussed a few other issues and then he said he would seek out his sheep. As I was packing up for lunch, I was approached by an official with a clipboard. His name is Simon Barclay. I was under investigation by the authority! A pleasant hour was spent explaining what I was doing and good things may come of this interesting exchange and even the sun came out to confirm this.
Meanwhile I had been beavering away. I had run out of bark chips and compost. I took a fresh look at the compost pile. Instead of regarding it as a repository for weeds and disease, I now regarded it as a well earned resource and started deploying it as a way of adding organic matter to the soil, under the fabric, and as a mulch on top. It hasn't rotted down completely, which comes as no surprise as grass, leaves and woody material decompose slowly, but also suggests that the bacteria and other organisms which cause decomposition are not present in any significant quantity. In other words, the soil is pretty lifeless and also low in nitrogen, which all adds up to unhealthy plants. One way to redress this imbalance is to use a compost accelerator which is basically bacteria food.

March 23rd



I am not alone. This is the Alexandra Road allotment vineyard in Epsom, Surrey, listed as 0.0100 hectares, with 8 rows of about 6 vines each, so a single allotment of 48 vines, half the size. The photo is dated 2006.
It's on chalk and on a south-facing slope, so ideally sited.
 There is another, called Olding Manor, in Lewisham, established in 2007 with 52 plants. By 2011 this was down to 45, almost 12% down in 4 years. Arithmetically this could be 48% after 16 years but it still makes my 75% loss pretty catastrophic. They get a yield of 3 bottles per vine so my fully restored vineyard might eventually yield 288 bottles in a few years time. Given costs are aleady above £800 and set to continue rising,  the cost per bottle is unlikely to get as low as even the most expensive kit wines.

March 28th
Reading up on bio-dynamics, I learn some stuff:
You need manure (derived from animals) as well as compost (derived from plants) and soil in your compost heap, plus the special preparations to activate and accererate decomposition.
The heap should be built a few inches below ground level with any turf removed.
It must be covered with a layer of soil.
Vineyard soil must not be used if copper (eg  Bordeaux mixture) has been sprayed because this inhibits bacteria.
Applying incompletely rotted compost robs the soil of nutrients.
Applying sulphate of potash is counter productive.
Dandelions enhance the ripening of fruit.
The presence of moss and lichens indicates stale air moisture, conducive to fungal attack.
A moist westerly wind promotes mildew.
The live layer of soil is only up to 6 inches deep. Digging the soil deeper than that is counter productive.
Screening the site from prevailing winds can raise the soil temperature up to 2 c.
90% of plant nutrition is derived from the atmosphere rather than the soil.
Birds are deterred by hanging pickled herring and the carcasses of birds of the same species.

So to address these issues, the following steps could be taken:
Poultry manure pellets could be added to the compost and soil could be excavated from a corner of the site, away from the vines. The bio-dynamic preparations can be obtained and applied.
The entire compost heap should be shifted to one side, the turf removed and set aside, the soil excavated down to 10 inches and set aside, the compost replaced in the hole with layers of the excavated soil and then covered with any remaining soil.
The pile of vine wood should be burned and the ashes applied to the beds, instead of sulphate of potash, and compost. Additionally the considerable amount of wood at home should be incinerated and the ashes applied.
Clearly the eradication of dandelions should stop.
Moss and lichens on the rieslings suggest that the eastern row should be abandoned and a new row should be created on the western side. There is space for this.
Last years wet weather was apparantly caused by the jet stream in the upper atmosphere shifting south and sitting above the UK latitude. The current cold spell is attributed to the jet stream shifting further south, partly because the north polar ice is melting more than usual. Not much I can do about that.

March 31st
I was tempted to buy 10 young cypress trees for £1 each at a boot fair, to create a windbreak against the prevailing Southwesterly wind, although there is a risk that the parks manager might object. While considering this, someone else bought them! I fared better at the garden centre, where they were selling compost accelerator very cheap. I got some and sprinkled it on the compost heap, along with chicken manure pellets, which I also sprinkled on the bare earth exposed by removing the remaining black plastic, only to discover that where I had scattered it last year, under the plastic, it had not decomposed at all, so those plants never got any benefit! Understandably, it is very dry where the plastic was intact.
I started turning the compost to mix up the ingredients, but half a ton is a lot of work, especially as it is still pretty cold weather, which slows me down, but at least it's not wet and windy.
I changed the battery in the alarm on the weather station and it now makes an ear-splitting noise when disturbed.

April 2nd
Despite the forecast, it was a sunny day and pleasant for working outdoors. I did a lot of burning yesterday but the ashes produced were very small so I will need sulphate of potash anyway. I used up the remaining winter wash, poultry manure and most of the compost accelerator, so more supplies needed: £36.50 to be added to the bill, which is now £872.
The winter wash is now complete, apart from the mature transplants, which hopefully don't need it. It is basically thin glue which coats the eggs, preventing them from hatching. It also clogs the nozzle of the sprayer!
I continued re-organizing the compost, which is too dry to respond to the treatment but makes it easy to handle. There has been no rain for 10 days and a stiff, cold wind. The heap is unprotected and exposed on all sides. At home, I employ 3 bins: 1 for raw materials, 1 with prepared materials decomposing and 1 containing ready compost. Some of the latter is reserved for the preparation of the next lot as an activator. I also have an incinerator, to produce wood ash which gets added to the mix. The system works well initially when a site is cleared of weeds etc. but the amount of raw material available diminishes over time as weed control becomes more effective. Kitchen waste doesn't add up to much quantity and doesn't rot down too well, neither do grass mowings and tree leaves, which make up most of the readily available materials. However the vegetable plot I have been cultivating for 3 years is rich dark crumbly soil and the lawn is pretty much grade 2, so in a sense, the job has been done.
Meanwhile, there are only 2 rows left to overhaul, so overall I am on top of the situation, which is a nice position to be in on the verge of a somewhat delayed spring!
I picked up a humming line for 50p. It's a thin strip of non-stretch plastic which, when taut, emits a sound which birds don't like when the wind blows. That's the claim. It's 30 metres long and should be secured at 3-6 metre intervals, at varying heights and orientation. It's hard to see how I can vary the height without garotting myself or tripping over.

April 11th
I took advantage of incorrectly priced bark chips and got 175 litres for £5. Total so far £877.
In the last 24 hours, a collosal 7.5 cms of rain has fallen, which should get the compost activator going. The ground temperature is rising, but still only 6.7 c.
My neighbour recently had her birch tree severely pruned and was dripping sap from the wounds. So far, I have collected 15 litres. It contains a small amount of sugar and has a delightful flavour. With the juice of 2 oranges and lemons, 2 pounds of sugar and a pound of raisins per gallon it supposedly makes a good wine. We shall see!

April 24th
Yesterday the soil temperature was 12 c., the pinot noir buds were swelling, and sap is weeping from the most recent pruning, but the transplanted rondos and bacchus are still dormant, possibly delayed on account of being transplanted. The cuttings are also dormant, as are the rieslings, but the rest are showing signs of life.
The grass has been cut and looks great. The compost heap has responded to the treatment, helped also by rain and warming weather. The soil is very moist.
I deployed the sulphate of potash. A £5 box is sufficient for 3 rows, so I will need 3 more. I will also need another 300 litres of bark chips to complete that job, which will push costs over the £900 mark.
There are plenty of dandelions in flower, but since they supposedly aid ripening, I will not dig them up. Daisies have appeared in greater numbers than before.

April 29th
Buds are emerging about 3 weeks later than last year, which suggests similarly later ripening.
Azda are selling bark chips at £10 for 210 litres, so total now £887. Wyvales have some interesting vines at the moment, namely Madeleine Angevine, pinot blanc and cabernet sauvignon, all at £11 each. I have one of the latter at home. It is a late ripener, but I never get any ripe ones because the birds eat them all. However, this year I am building a frame to enable me to cover them with netting. Cabernet sauvignon is not a popular choice in UK vineyards and madeleine angevine is typically grown in more northerly latitudes, as it is one of the earliest ripeners. If the cuttings fail, I will buy more vines, but at the moment I don't have the space, which is progress indeed!
On the home front, the chardonnay, black hamburg and riesling are budding, while the regent has suffered die back.
Since I never completed the weeding of next door's lawn, there is a huge crop of dandelions. In an attempt to curb their spread, I picked all the open flowers, a gallon in all, and started to make wine from them, but as they have no scent and little flavour of note, my expectations are not high.

May 2nd
Got a second crop of dandelions within 24 hours from the same patch!
Meanwhile I deployed the bark chips, calculated the number needed to complete and Azda had sold out, so back to Aldi, who had a few left, so bought 5. Also 40 m2 of netting. £4. Total so far £901.
The riesling and dunkelfelder buds are swelling, but 2 of each of the vines seem dead. All of the new vines are budding, as are some of the rondos and cuttings, but the bacchus are still dormant. The soil temperature is 8.7 c

May 6th
Tempted by the offer of a 10% discount for early shoppers, I made my way to Wyvales to get the potash a bit cheaper. You don't get really cheap deals on potash, unless you burn masses of wood, because it is in such high demand that there is a proposal to dig a really deep mine in a Yorkshire National park to dig the stuff out. There is already a mine there, almost a mile deep, which extends under the North sea!
While shopping, I picked up the pinot blanc vine to replace the dead riesling. £22.50 in all. Total over all, £923.50.
Working on the last row which had fairly intact black plastic, my assumptions proved correct. The earth was hard baked, bone dry and lifeless, to the naked eye at least.
Park staff had cut the grass again, but they also cut a healthy young vine and some of the cuttings. With 'support' like that, who needs vandals? Now I will have to install chicken wire cages for protection against the council's strimmer gorilla.
The recent 6 mm. shower made no impression on the reluctant bacchus vines and only a few of the rondos have made any signs of progress. After the considerable effort and fair expense to install these vines, I am having creeping doubts about the wisdom and value of the exercise.
Another warm day predicted tomorrow, with wind and rain to follow.

May 7th
A wind-damaged vine was bleeding so I taped the top bit onto the root. It may heal. I brought along tin snips which made cutting the chicken wire very easy. Making and fitting the cages makes a welcome break from digging in the hot sun. The trees at the end provide welcome shade for me.
There's not many weeds in this row, because of the plastic sheeting, but the earth needs a lot of work to break it up. There is a core of good compost and more than enough to complete the job.
There are 33 mature live vines and hopefully others may yet burst into bud. There are 12 young vines budding and a few hopeful-looking cuttings, but I suspect I will have to buy more. However, there is no rush, as the 3 dead vines plus many old roots need to be removed first. By next spring, there should be very little work to be done, theoretically. The aim is to have a full complement of vines for an outlay of £1000, with the cost spread over 2 years. The figure will certainly exceed this, but not greatly.
2 visitors today: 1 well-wisher and another seeking advice.

May 10th
The promised rain was not significant. Still no signs of life in the bacchus, but 5 of the rondos are off the mark. I wondered if the problem was lack of moisture, but a test proved this not to be the case. According to biodynamic principles, there are certain dates which favour sowing and planting and in both cases this applied. I suspect the real problem is that these were the very last vines to be sold, and probably not the best.
So the bottom line is 8 riesling,16 healthy pinot noirs and 2 dunkelfelders are my only hope of a crop this year. They are all in a considerably better state than 2 years ago. The emerging leaves look fine, but the same was true last year. Although conditions do not favour mildew at the moment, I must not fail to spray earlier this time. The new shoots are already 2 inches long.
I dug up another live stump and started labelling the vines yesterday, but strong, cold and wet wind forced me to abandon completing the penultimate row. Finishing the last row will be a big milestone for me. Most of this last row was never dug and weeded and is a mass of dandelion, couch grass and chickweed, and shows how these aggressive weeds rob moisture and top-dressed nutrients from the topsoil, depriving the vines.
Meanwhile, 5 more bags of chips, £10: £933.50.




No weed control


Weeded, with fabric and bark chips in place, but unmamaged. Couch grass is incredibly resilient!

May 13th
Thieves have struck. The 5 bags of bark chips, the remaining manure pellets and compost accelerator have gone. The chips, worth less than £10 and weighing 175 kilos in total would have had to be carried quite some distance to a car parked on a double yellow line on a busy road. Pretty desperate people, and quite stupid. The unopened box of potash alone is worth £5 and the shovel and fork are good quality. They also ignored the new unplanted vine, clearly labelled £10. Nonetheless burglars tend to return, so no more leaving bags for them, or anything else. I planted the new vine and removed the tools. Fortunately the local Azda had more bark chips, so I got 3 more bags. 210 litres for £10. So £943.50 is the new total.

May 14th
A more positive day. I completed the penultimate row and dug some of the last row, so only half a row to go. This last row had received little attention because it has the 2 vigourus vines which overwhelm the weeds. However, now they have been substantially pruned, the weeds are thriving. The earth is very dry and compacted. I dug up another dead vine root and I note that the roots are rather shallow, only a foot deep and therefore vulnerable to drought.
The really good news is that the pinot noirs already have flower buds and lots of them. Another good sign is that the moss has not returned and the grass is looking almost respectable.
The next phase is to spray against mildew.

May 15th
7.5 mm of overnight rain was most welcome. It doesn't sound like much, but it penetrates several inches into the soil and certainly made digging a lot easier. Nonetheless I brought a gallon of water to apply directly to a single bacchus to see if this might wake it up. I then noticed that 2 of them had developed big cracks all the way down the trunk, so I guess are now useless. This led me to assess my expenditure. About £400 has been wasted, mostly on crap vines, but also on items not needed, like the strimmer, the water carrier, trolley and the weather station.
6 out of 26 transplanted vines is better than nothing but certainly a pretty poor return for the time, effort and expense invested, but consistent with other results. The 10 cheap 1 year olds had an 80% failure rate, the same as the cuttings. Only the 2 year olds from garden centres have, so far, been 100% successful, and even some of those don't look too good.
What can be learned from the Ickworth experience? I ignored advice about the general inadvisability of transplanting established vines. the holes should have been wider, so that the roots could be spread out properly. Tree and shrub specialist compost could have been used and the roots should have dipped in the Rootgrow, rather than scattering the granules on them, and even though the ground was wet, some water should have been applied. The vines were the last few and probably not the best. The vendor's claim of 85% success may not have been based on a truly representative sample and was not specific about the varieties. It may be that bacchus is more likely to fail than the others. The key is the buds. Had I inspected them initially, I would have seen that they had no potential, shrivelled and dead. The vines were already dead.
The composting is working out well. I now have 3 heaps: 1 being used, 1 maturing and 1 being built, plus a pile of woody material to be burnt for ashes. There are several rows which have yet to benefit from the application of compost.

May 19th
I completed the the digging and weeding of the last row, but the hard labour is not over yet, as there are 2 more dead vines to be removed plus an unspecified number of old roots. However, there is no urgency for this, because there is nothing yet to replace them.
The pinot noirs are looking good, so I have started deploying more netting.

May 21st
I bought 3 more bags of chips to complete the job, with some to spare for topping up. £953.50. The weed and moisture control is fully installed, at a cost of about £150, involving 2400 litres of chips, 720 m2 of fabric and the removal of a couple of tons of weeds, prunings and grass clippings, most of which has rotted down and been put back as compost. All that remains to be done is to pull up a smallish amount of isolated couch grass and consolidate the 3 piles of compost into a single, small heap.
I started deploying the netting from Aldi. The length is stated as 10 metres, but they are much longer. However, when stretched out to 2 metres wide, the length will shorten to the length of the row and I should be able to use the supplied pegs at ground level, which will make the job so much easier. I must get some more. 1 pack does an entire row, both sides, for £4. Although most of the rows don't need complete cover, this is a much better system than the current piecemeal arrangement.
The strimmer will come in useful after all, because the park staff don't do an adequate job along the bed margins, so money well spent in the end. The biggest waste of money was the transplanted vines. It now looks like only 5 rondos, out of a total of 26 vines, are actually growing. For an outlay of £300, that's £60 per healthy vine! However, to put this in context, I once saw a less mature pinot noir at Homebase for £50, and there is still a chance that the inert ones may recover.
There are just a few bunches forming on the rieslings and really just a waste of space.

May 21st
The pinot noirs are looking really good. I sprayed them today against powdery mildew with systhane, as rain is predicted. I also heard that a good fruit crop is predicted in the UK. The winter wash had gummed up the sprayer, so I flushed it with hot water and detergent. It works really well now.
I bought a golden chasselas vine for £11, but got 3 kg of potash free with discounts and vouchers, so total is now £964.50. I planted the vine today with compost, potash and bonemeal, with a sprinkling of water.

June 2nd
I counted 430 flower bunches, less than last year (500) but the vines were pruned somewhat harder. The 2 most vigorous rondos have several each.
I spotted some live brown scale insects on several plants. Thet are quite easy to spot because ants 'harvest' them. Clearly the winter wash wasn't totally effective, but the number of insects is less than 50, at this stage. I will spray with Provado, a systemic pesticide.
I removed the 2 dead dunkels, to be replaced with young black varieties. I resisted the temptation to buy 2 cheap ones because one was labelled Brandt and the other not identified.

June 3rd
Encouraged by the prospect of more fine weather, I prepared 4 litres of Provado and attacked the scale insects. Although they appear only on the weaker vines, I decided to spray the lot. 4 litres wasn't quite enough to do a thorough job, but all plants got sprayed. The fact that only the least healthy plants were infested suggests that healthy plants resist them, or that they target weaker plants. It's becoming clear to me now that managing a vineyard is actually an ongoing damage limitation operation!
Not to be discouraged, I set about getting replacement vines, now that weed control has been established, for the time being. I picked up a chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon and then found something new. Homebase now sell double cuttings in pots for £3, in 2 varieties: muscat and frankenthaler. I got 3 of the latter as they were a black wine variety. Total cost £32. £996.50 over all. With petrol, £1000 has been reached.
Finding plots for the blacks was easy, but the chardonnay required some thought. I decided to examine the worst looking bacchus, which came up with no effort at all, as it was clearly dead even before I collected it. I am quite angry. The only positive outcome is 10 well prepared beds for new vines.
So 5 more vines planted and room for at least another 13.
Comparing the weather data, the only difference is that the wind chill factor is significant, by about 2.5 c., which is fairly obvious for a more exposed site. The air temperature got close to zero in early May, which was a close shave, but the buds were dormant at the time.

June 4th
After a fruitless search for vines at 2 other garden centres, I went to the vineyard, armed with some canes from my bamboo plant and 5 gallons of water for the new vines. I found and destroyed about a dozen scale insects, some new, some old, and only on a few vines. I don't think they pose much of a threat, but it pays to be vigilant.
It's quite clear that I can pick up some more white varieties so maybe this is the way to go, replacing the dead bacchus transplants with pinot blanc, chasselas and madeleine angevine, all readily available. After all, I do enjoy white wine! However, a bulk order for seyval blanc from Mr Skelton would make more sense because that was his recommendation.

June 5th
Lovely weather but the lack of rain is also an issue for the transplants. I bought 2 chardonnays and 5 (all they had) frankenthaler cuttings. £38. TOA £1038.50.
I left the cuttings in the car while I planted the chardonnays. I decided to dig up the severed regent, which was quite sad, because the rootstock was well established, but would not produce a productive vine on its own. I also dug up another cracked bacchus. Both have been replaced with the new chardonnays, and I'm quite happy with that.


                    2 more have started to crack. This is the worst case, with 10 deep fissures.

I got absorbed with a search and destroy mission for more scale insects and forgot about about the cuttings in the car, which were being cooked in the heat. Hopefully they may recover with some soaking. I transplanted them to bigger pots with my compost and put them in my garden so I can keep an eye on them.
Frankenthaler turns out to be trollinger, aka black hamburg, which is unfortunate, since it is even later ripening than riesling and produces a mediocre pale red wine only produced for local consumption in Wurtenburg and usually sweet. I believe I may have tasted some in Germany, and wasn't impressed. I had one given to me and it's certainly vigourous, but the single bunch of grapes it produced last year did not ripen. Still, they were only £3 each and I may as well plant them as placeholders for the time being.
It seems I am not the only one having trouble with the Ickworth vines and have been advised that they may yet recover.
Stephen Skelton says I am 4 weeks too late to order seyval blanc.
Meanwhile the grape flowers have reached a critical state. Current weather favours pollination.

June 7th
Only a few scale insects detected. More flower clusters have emerged. I counted 710, significantly more than last year. Although it sounds a lot, last year the Wrotham pinot produced 130 bunches but this would have only made 6 bottles of wine, even if the birds hadn't eaten about 30 of them. Projecting on this basis, I might expect a total yield of 33 bottles, little more than 1 per productive vine. So even at full capacity, 100 bottles would seem to be about the mark.
My local florist has some unidentified white vines at £9.50. They are claimed to be ripe in August.

June 14th
Rapid growth now, but high winds have snapped an untied branch. I can see now the wisdom of keeping the plants compact. Meanwhile I have secured the other vulnerable branches with twist ties and tucked new growth between the parallel wires. Lots more flower buds have appeared, particularly on the rieslings which had none last year. They all have some way to go to pollination. It's still rather cool and cloudy most days, but the humidity is fairly low. No sign of mildew as yet.
I found a few more scale insects. Apparently they can reduce vigour if the infestation is heavy, but otherwise they cause little damage.
The grass is now up to 2 feet high as it has only been cut once this year. It's not really a problem, but gives the site an untended look. I need a scythe.
I pulled up another badly cracked Bacchus, which was clearly rotting below ground. All but 1 of the rest are inert and at least 2 are cracked.

June 17th
I got an old sickle, sharpened it and tried it out. It works, but no thanks! I dug out the strimmer but it wouldn't start, so I poured out the stale fuel and made a fresh batch - bingo! Experimenting with the choke lever, I found that with it about two thirds closed, the engine would run at full power indefinitely. A major breakthrough. I also dug out the ear defenders and set about tackling the long grass. I could have completed the whole site in 3 hours, with breaks, had I not run out of fuel, but I may as well leave the unused end of the site as a set-aside area for wildlife.
It would have taken less time if the long grass was shorter, as I had to stop several times to remove the stuff from clogging the spindle. Next time I'll wear padded gloves. It's a bit of a rough cut, but that's ok.If the park staff come back with the lawn mower, they can finish the job. I hit the cages, accidentally, a couple of times and they did their job. Anyway, buying the strimmer turned out to be money well spent.
During the breaks, I tucked more shoots within the wires and removed the broken branch, with the loss of only 4 bunches. I pulled up another badly cracked bacchus. This one appeared to have healthy roots and no signs of rot, but the cracks were so deep and dry, the plant really had no chance.
During a break I had a chat with a bloke who said his dad had got him to tread grapes when he was a boy.
The coming week promises to be very warm, but humid, which are ideal conditions for downy mildew, so time for the Bordeaux mixture. However, this should not be used during the flowering period, which should be very soon.

June 19th
I picked up some more Bordeaux mixture (now £5 for 175 g) and 2 more pinot blancs, at £10 each, so TOA £1063.50. It was a simple matter to plant them to replace the cracked bacchus vines, but it illustrates the mountain to climb to fully repopulate the site, given the failure of the transplants.
There are some worrying signs. A few new leaves are looking somewhat discoloured.
Hottest day of the year and too much to hang around in the open. 27 c in the shade.

June 23rd
Only 2 of the rondos look viable now, only 3 bacchus have not cracked and only 1 cutting is left. No sign of any brown scale insects or mildew.

June 25th
I pulled up 2 more bacchus and found the roots to be rotting. I replaced them with a chardonnay and a pinot blanc. £21, so TOA now £1084.50.
I did point out to the vendor of the vines that she was £200 better off and I was down £300 with only 4 viable vines to show for it. Unsurprisingly, no response. A little mention of the sale of goods act, headed with 'without prejudice' might focus her mind somewhat. It has worked in the past.
Close examination of the exhumed vines suggests crown gall infection, not something I would gladly welcome into the vineyard. There are black marks in the cracks, suggesting that the cracks already existed but were hidden beneath the loose bark when I bought the vines. A bit of research reveals that the time to transplant mature vines is early autumn or spring when there is no risk of frost. The roots were undercut, severing the long tap root, and dug up on a very cold day of a frosty spell in February. I dug the holes a few days before planting, so they would have been exposed to frost and therefore be very cold.
I contacted someone who was also having problems with vines from the same source. 2 of the 6 he bought looked doubtful, but that's a roaring success in comparison.
The Chasselas Dore is the standard for classifying ripening dates, broadly divided into 3 epoques, the 1st, in the UK, being outdoor, the 2nd under cold glass and the 3rd under heated glass. The 1st is divided into 1st early, early and second early, the class to which Chasselas Dore belongs. Black Hamburg belongs to the 2nd epoque. However, the climate has changed and I have seen Black Hamburg sold as an outdoor variety. Mine did produce grapes last year which did not fully ripen, but then it was a lousy year and the vine is not yet mature. Either way, this suggests that Chasselas Dore is a good choice and Riesling no longer such a bad choice.

June 27th
To illustrate just how bad a deal it was, here are some pictures of the rondos:



This is what I was led to expect, but only 3 out of 26 turned out this way.



2 started to develop, but didn't get very far



Most never even got that far, and one has now developed cracks at the base
All of the green in this picture is in the background


The pictures show that the vines had been drastically cut for the purpose of transportation. Normally there would be 2 long canes.
The original vines are looking good. I removed more leaves to reveal the flower clusters which, as yet, have not actually flowered.
I found a few more scale insects, one of which was on a new vine, which must have been there when I bought it.
The weed/moisture control system is working very well. Although not 100% effective, it stifles weed growth and maintains moisture below ground level.

June 28th
The black Hamburgs which got roasted in the car have recovered well, so I planted 2 in place of the cuttings which failed. However, these cuttings are still green under the skin, so I replanted them elsewhere. So now the row nearest the gate, which had no vines, is now fully repopulated. Unfortunately, the erineum pest is now well established in my and neighbouring vines at home, so moving these plants to the vineyard may have been unwise. They show no signs of infestation, but I should keep an eye on them and dust with sulphur if detected.
As feared, the cracked rondo is getting worse, otherwise the Ickworth vines remain unchanged. Although it makes me sick to look at these barren stumps, I will leave them in place until all the vacant spaces have been filled. To that end, I went to the garden centre and picked up a chardonnay, a regent and 2 cabernet sauvignon. I know that the latter are classed as late mid-season, but they are labelled as outdoor and they were the only red wine vines available and were reduced in price to £8 each, as was the regent. So full restoration of the vineyard creeps a bit closer. Total £35. TOA, including fuel, £1124. I'd like to get some cash back for the Ickworth vines, but I will wait until the death toll is finalised. Currently only 4 are definitely alive.
Another grey and humid day with some rain but no sign of mildew yet. However, the weather prospects aren't good. Apparently lack of sun is not a big problem, provided the temperature is reasonably warm. This appears to be the case for my Wrotham pinot, which, despite the appalling weather, produced the same weight of fully ripe grapes as it did the previous year. This suggests that the total crop failure in the vineyard had more to do with the consequences of long term neglect than anything else. But it is also worth noting that the Wrotham pinot is growing on it's own roots rather than grafted rootstock.

June 29th
It turned out to be a fine June day. I planted the 4 new vines. Despite the fairly low rainfall, the earth is still moist beneath the protective layers and weed regeneration is minimal, which is great news.
I had 3 visitors plus a crow. No other birds seem to enter the enclosure.
I was going to pull up another cracked bacchus but found it still had evidence of some life in it and it was firm in the ground, unlike the others, which is encouraging.
1 pinot noir is looking unhealthy. The leaves are turning yellow. I had a similar problem with the rieslings last year and sprayed them with a solution of magnesium sulphate. They are looking good this year, so I'll do the same treatment for this one. The formula is half a pound of Epsom salts to 2.5 gallons of water, with a few drops of detergent. As I only have 100g., that's 4 litres of water.


Signs of magnesium deficiency

Back home, I transplanted the 3 remaining black hamburgs into deeper pots using some old compost, with a view to growing 1 or 2 in the greenhouse, but I must get some ventilation and shading system installed because the temperature inside can rise above 50 c., the maximum that the thermometer can record and similar to Death Valley at the moment, at 54!
I went searching for more vines and stopped off at Homebase to see what was on offer. They still had a few frankenthaler and muscat cuttings plus 2 chardonnay grafted vines at £8, which was tempting and something called a 'grape pyramid'. It is a large pot with a mass of cataratto grapes, a dark-skinned vigorous Sicilian variety for white wine, at £20 each.
Moving on to another branch of Wyvales, hoping to find the same promotion, I was greatly disappointed with their ragged collection of full priced unsuitable stock.

June 30th
Another fine day. I sprayed the affected vine, but found symptoms in some other pinot noirs. Stupidly, in my haste, I inadvertently used only 2 litres of water, thus doubling the dose. I hope this does no harm. Presumably the leaves absorb just what they need. It certainly seems fast acting. The leaves looked decidedly less yellow by the time I left the vineyard.
The symptoms of magnesium deficiency are yellowing between the the veins, with purplish blotches in some cultivars. Spot on! Should be sprayed 2 or 3 times fortnightly as a short term fix, and in subsequent years as a top dressing at 2 oz per square yard in late spring. That's 4 kg to do the lot, plus another kilo for spraying this year.
Clearly, the vines have exhausted the soil and handfuls of chicken manure pellets are not enough to fully restore it.
Flowers are now developing on all varieties that have buds except the dunkelfelders and rieslings.
I found a colony of scale insects which I exterminated. This the first actual colony I have seen and I can readily see how, unchecked, the potential damage they can cause.
I replaced a broken wire and set off again in search of vines. I found a regent and a cabernet sauvignon, both reduced to £8, so I snapped them up. They represent extremes of ripening, 1 early and 1 late, but that was all the black wine grape varieties available. This time, I decided not to leave them in the car but to bask in the sunshine at 27 c.

July 3rd
I am not entirely convinced about the magnesium deficiency solution as yet. The sample sprayed leaf I took home for analysis definitely turned green but the live leaves on the vine have not, although the condition has not worsened.
Hazel Murray has advised me to prune all non fruiting canes to 3 nodes, to improve air flow and reduce the risk of mildew. I was delighted to find that the vast majority of canes are fruit bearing, but that leads me wonder if I am over cropping, or maybe just being rewarded for my perseverance!
I decided to prune growth above the top wire and remove any fully grown leaves which conceal bunches, plus any damaged, old or unhealthy looking ones, resulting in a lot of litter. Clearing this up is a time consuming process, because there is also lots of litter from the strimming, so there is now a new compost heap developing. I planted the 2 new black varieties and added the dug out soil to the new heap.
The cracked bacchus has got worse so I pulled it up and replaced it with a chasselas dore. This leaves 3 bacchus, 1 clearly dead. The soil was rather dry, so I really must water it tomorrow.
I suppose I should update the costs. 3 more vines at £8 is £24, so £1148.
Many more clusters are now flowering, including the 3 surviving rondos and a regent, which is the only vine to remotely resemble the classic double Guyot profile.
An almost forgotten sound greeted my ears - the house sparrow. Their numbers have declined catastrophically, but sure enough there was a pair feeding a chick in the vineyard! I can also hear chaffinches, which is quite unusual, and goldfinches too.

July 4th
I watered in the new vines and cleared 2 more rows of the debris from strimming and summer pruning. It's a tedious hands-and-knees job. It's pretty clear the park staff cannot be relied upon to cut the grass, so I should use the strimmer every fortnight, which should prove less messy. This, in fact, should have been done 3 days ago! It will take much less time now I am committed to the wild margin policy. Of course, a proper approach to that is to dig up all the grass and plant wild flowers, nest boxes, a pond...
Yesterday I walked away from the site into a stiff westerly breeze. I had assumed the large trees to the west would offer protection, but the reverse is true. Walking towards the trees and into the large field beyond, the wind strength steadily dropped the further I walked. When the wind hits the tree foliage, it is funnelled under and increases in force and then hits the vineyard. This is why there were no vines left standing in the first row and hardly any in the next 3 rows. The solution proved quite simple. By fixing a 5 foot high reed screen to the wires on the front row, on the windward side, the bulk of the wind force is absorbed, along with the associated turbulence and, unlike a solid barrier, some air and light passes through. £54 well spent. Now £1202.
When I had paid for the 2 extra screens I needed to complete the row (I needed 3 in total and that exactly all they had in stock!) the woman behind, who I had never met before, asked me if I was going back to the vineyard. She lives opposite it and has been watching me working there. She had walked to the garden centre, over a mile away, with her baby and pushchair, bought a rose bush in a large pot and then realised she would have a big problem getting it back home. When I explained that I was going home and would not return to the vineyard until tomorrow, she asked if I could take the rose home with me and she would collect it from the vineyard at 10.00 am. I agreed, but what a curious exchange!
Tomorrow is set to reach 30 c. I found some notes saying expect grape flowers around Wimbledon tennis time, so maybe things are catching up to normal.

July 5th
The windbreak is now fully installed. I considered painting it with Clocktower Vineyard, but then realised this would be the same as ‘Pick Your Own Grapes!' 
The woman, a Ukrainian called Olga, turned up and explained she came from Crimea. The Valley of Death into which rode the 600 of the Light Brigade, is full of vineyards. Due to the problem with alcoholism in the Ukraine, Gorbachov ordered the destruction of many vineyards, for which he was hated and rightly so, because the real problem was vodka, and only because of the depressing nature of the Soviet regime.
Her ‘husband’ turns up and we have an interesting discussion about Ukrainian wine and the kinds of vodka you never see in the UK, while she fetches me a coffee from the swimming pool/fitness club. He is local policeman (with a badge to prove it. He walks the dog in the park, so I could legitimately claim ‘Plain clothes Police regularly patrol this area’!
She then produced a vine leaf from her garden, infected with erineum, a problem I have myself at home. Fortunately it was in a plastic pouch! I identified the pest and told her what to do about it, but it is worrying because she literally lives round the corner, near the petrol station. Erineum is a mite which causes blistering of the leaves, mimicking the fatal phylloxera. Although not fatal, it spreads rapidly, causing severe defoliation if unchecked and spreads to other vines. Dusting with sulphur is an effective remedy, but it the pest always comes back the next year.
The attached picture, west on the left, illustrates the long term effect of the wind problem and hopefully the solution. It doesn’t show the land profile which makes matters worse. The ground dips sharply  just after the trees and then the vineyard rises gently (1:25) , a bit like a launch pad profile! Hedges and buildings provide some protection from other directions, but the first row of rieslings bear the brunt of pollution from the road traffic and get no morning sun on account of the evergreen trees. The pinots are nicely sandwiched between sacrificial layers!
I found a note I had taken about pinots in the UK: Flowering around Wimbledon, harvest 3rd week in October. So they appear to be on schedule!
Finding non fruiting canes to prune was difficult, because most had at least 1 cluster, so I cut any growth above the top wire and removed all leaves which had passed their prime. The weather is perfect for pollination, warm and dry with a gentle breeze and set to stay that way for a few days.
I looked into buying slate, but what is on offer is unsuitable small pieces of scree and very expensive, so not viable. My neighbour has a stockpile of unusual non-standard roof tiles behind his shed. He says I can have them for nothing, but there is only enough to cover 1 row. Rather more interesting is expensive woven, tear-proof weed control fabric, guaranteed for 15 years, currently on offer at 2 for the price of 1. This would work out a £1 per metre, so £144 in total to do the whole site. However, at a metre wide, it could be cut down the middle and used in conjunction with the aforementioned tiles as edging to cover 3 rows for £20. Worth considering.
I pulled up the 8th bacchus and found signs of life. There were a few new roots so it may have developed, given more time. Too late. I replaced it with a cheap offer from my local florist of a vroegen van der laan, an early ripening dual-purpose white grape £5.50.

July 6th
Things are really hotting up and it's getting hard to keep up with the pace. The magnesium spray didn't seem to be having much effect. Yellowing of leaves can also be caused by chlorosis, caused by excessive lime in the soil, which can be rectified with the application of sequestered iron. A proper pH test of the soil revealed the opposite to be the case. It turns out that the soil is moderately acidic (pH 6.0) and needs lime added to make it the moderately alkaline soil that European vines prefer. In the end, this required 15 kilos of garden lime, just to neutralise the acidity. The packet said the recommended rate to apply was 10 g. per m2, but the book I read stated 160 g. to correct soil with a pH of 6.0. Apart from calcium, garden lime contains magnesium, but the vines won't benefit from this until rain has watered this down to the roots. £28.00.
I emptied the bags of collected stones, which covered a single row. This further suppresses the weeds, prevents the bark chips from being scattered and also works as a storage heater. It looks good and eliminates the plastic sacks in which they were contained, thus improving the general appearance of the site.

July 7th
I bought the last 2 vines from the florist as they looked in good condition. £11. Total now £1246.50.
I pulled up the cracked rondo and found it had a few short roots with no signs of growth.
Rather than casting prunings to the ground and tediously collecting them up, I fixed a shoulder strap to the pop up carrier and set about trimming down to just below the top wire. It took some time to complete but it eliminated all the back bending. I now have a new compost heap, 3 feet high. The vines now resemble neat hedgerows.


This is a highly selective shot, but given time all rows should look like this!

A few aphids have appeared.
Some of the flower buds have turned brown and are dropping off, but mostly flowering is proceeding well and according to reports coming in, my vines are ahead of the rest of the country, on account of London being the hottest place. Apparently, a wind break against the prevailing wind raises the site temperature by 2 degrees. The ground temperature on centre court the other day was 40! The moisture control system is working well, except at the southern end of the rows, which get no shade, so the young vines here will need extra watering. Fortunately, I should be able to get water from the petrol station a very short distance away.

July 8th
The lime treatment is almost complete, just 3 rows to go. It should be lightly forked in and watered, but this is not practical. It's bound to rain soon because you typically get thunderstorms after a hot dry spell.

July 9th
Another magnesium spray is due in 3 days time. The grass margins would have needed trimming, but the park staff have done a very thorough job and must have used a collecting bin this time because there is very little to mop up. No damage this time either.
I completed the application of lime and the number of tasks remaining is diminishing. The complete absence of ant activity suggests that the eradication of pests is complete. The loss of some flower buds may be due to the magnesium deficiency, to which grapevines are particularly sensitive.
I did some projections based on typical yields per hectare and it seems that 200 bottles would be about par for my plot, if in full production and good health, which, as yet, it is not.

July 10th
I found lots of stones in and around my garden, 4 bags full, but this only covered one third of a row.
On closer inspection, the very promising layered cutting had been severed by the strimmer gorilla, despite its protective chicken wire and bamboo stake, not to mention the complete lack of need to cut that far in. It seems deliberate. It's unfortunate that I wasn't present at the time.
I planted the other 2 vroegens, removed all sickly leaves, watered in the lime around the yellowest vines and reclaimed 2 x 12 metre lengths of wire, for spares.
The 'wild area' has been cut but this may not be such a bad thing because I found a fag butt which had been left to burn on the ground close to the fence and, given the very dry conditions, could have proved quite disastrous with long dry grass. This makes the use of stones instead of bark chips a safer bet.
2 visitors this morning, Olga and a genial gentleman in a straw hat, plus a wave and a smile from a woman I did not recognise.

July 11th
Having decided that stones was the way to go, I got a helping hand: a seasonal offer of 2 for 1, £3 a bag. I chose 1 of pebbles and 1 of scree, the latter proving to give better coverage, about 1 m2 per bag. So long as the offer is on, the job could be completed for under £200, as opposed to the original estimate in excess of £500, which would be out of the question. Nonetheless, this involves over 60 bags of scree.
En route, I picked up a regent and a chardonnay for £8 each, so the total is now, with fuel, to £1270.

July 13th
Second application of magnesium. The 2 new vines planted. Very hot and dry.  Looks like I could install scree slate for around £100. Fruit setting nicely on fragolinos and pinot noir, although the magnesium deficiency in the latter is reducing productivity.
The local garden centre is not yet offering the half price deal on scree so had to go to Osterley to pick up 4 bags. There is an opportunity to colour code the stone according to variety, so I bought 2 bags of blue and 2 bags of purple. I also picked up 2 cabernet sauvignon. Cost £27, so total cost now £1297.

July 15th
The heatwave continues and by 10:30 am it really is too hot to work out in the open, even with a hat and plenty of water to drink. It has not rained for 15 days and there is no prospect of any in the next 2 weeks. This is great for the established vines and the development of the grapes, but some of the young vines are showing signs of water stress.
2 rows are now covered with a motley array of aggregates. The picture below shows the scree obtained at half price.



I pulled up 2 of the most dead looking rondos. There were no signs of root growth. The earth is still moist. I replaced them with cabernet sauvignon.
Fruit has set on the fragolinos. They are now about 5 mm in diameter.


It was a mistake to take the photo on the sunny side!

After 15 days, the effect of the initial magnesium spray is now noticeable on the worst affected vine. The overall impression is now more green than yellow. What puzzles me is that most of the vines still show no symptoms of the magnesium deficiency, which suggests the problem was localised and not consistent across the site. One thing is for sure, the die-back rate of the flower clusters on the vines with yellowing leaves is higher.


The effect of the application of garden lime will probably not be noticed until about this time next year.

July 16th
I picked up 6 more bags, which proved a bit too much for getting over speed ramps. On arrival, I found the rotting corner fence post was down, which was bound to happen. However, I made good use of the dead bacchus vines to prop up that section of fence, so they proved of some value of least. A 9th one has now cracked, so that can come up and be replaced.
I completed a third row with the scree. It is now clear that 8 bags per row are required. That's £24 per row, while the sale price is on and stocks last, so the sensible strategy would be to do half a row per session for the time being. Total now £1315.
The fruit has now set on the pinot noirs. No copper-based sprays have yet been used, so development has not been slowed down.
Wood pigeons are now inspecting the site, albeit nervously. I am considering shooting them on sight and hanging their corpses from the top wires.
The total number of active vines is now 73.

July 17th
I picked up 4 more bags of scree and a phoenix vine. Total now £1325. Total active vines 74.
I made a more reliable repair to the fence post by driving a steel rod into the ground and secured it with stout wire. 4 bags of scree covered more than half a row, so I may get away with 7 bags per row, but the total cost is still going to be over £200, at the current price, requiring another 17 sessions.
When I pulled up the 9th bacchus, I found the same suspicious black mark in the widest part of the crack. Clearly something had got in from the outside. There were 2 tiny new rootlets, but the trunk was bone dry. The earth was pretty dry down to at least a foot. It was the hottest day of the year and West London the hottest place, over 30 for the last 5 days. I recorded 34 today. No rain for the last 3 weeks and the forecast is for the driest July for 240 years. Even wearing a hat and keeping in shade as much as possible, I ended up with a headache. I planted the new phoenix, gave it a gallon of water and shared another gallon between the most needy looking.

July 18th
I worked out a simple route avoiding bumps, so loaded 6 bags of 40 mm slate scree, noting that stock is getting low, and completed the 5th row.
While it may seem hot here, it's 38 in south west France and 40 in Odessa, but the temperature is set to rise to 35 next week. Targeted watering has proved beneficial. I think another spray dose of magnesium will be required.
There are 7 fence posts which need to be secured with metal rods, as they have rotted at the base.
It seems someone attempted to steal the coils of steel wire and gave up. It may be wise to remove or conceal it to avoid the temptation. Recently, I have seen new signs around offering cash for scrap metal, which does not bode well.

July 21st
The 6th row has been covered, almost. £18, plus £10 for fuel. £1353.
All fruit has set and isolated pockets of powdery mildew affected leaves have been removed from the pinots. The early sign is cobweb-like threads on the leaf surface. For the second time, I removed all growth above the top wire plus any straggly shoots. A second batch of flowers are starting to develop on the pinots.
I filled the Aquaroll and poured 20 litres of water onto half a row. A local resident, who lives across the road, said I could use her outside tap to refill, an offer I may take up if the drought continues.

July 22nd
8.7 mm of rain fell early this morning, unexpectedly. While this is most welcome, I will have to spray immediately with Systhane, the prevent an outbreak of powdery mildew. 5 litres was only enough for 10 rows.
By 10:30, it was too hot to continue working on what is predicted to be the peak of the heatwave, but I managed to make 2 repairs to the fence wire.
The rain has penetrated a few inches into the soil, so the process of neutralising has begun. Another spray of magnesium will still be required on the 27th., unless there is considerable rainfall in the meantime.
This appeared in the UKVine newsletter today:



Harvest 2013: Flowering in the heat

READERS CONTINUE TO flood the ukvine office with photos of their initial flowerings. Here are some of the latest. If you have examples of your flowering, please send them to jg@ukvine.com.

Robust survivors

TONY HIBBETT MANAGES the previously abandoned Clocktower Vineyard, which unusually occupies two former allotments, in a public park in West London.
He says: “It was originally planted with riesling, pinot noir, dunkelfelder and fragolino, in 1997. Most of the original plantings have been destroyed by the combined effect of neglect and a wind funnel effect created by tall trees on the prevailing windward side.
“Of what remains, the fragolinos prove to be the most robust survivors. Disease resistant, vigorous and heavy cropping, happy to grow on acid soil with magnesium deficiency and derided for having a strawberry flavour, nonetheless the fruit has set on 15th July, with berries 5 mm in diameter, way ahead of any of the incoming reports.”
He considers the site benefits from an altitude below 50 metres, in the warmest part of the country with a south-western slope, well protected from wind. The average daytime temperature is currently above 30 and the pinot noir is also now setting fruit.
He says: “This is by no means a commercial venture, but rather more a mildly expensive personal project.”
 
July 24th
Another heavy downfall of rain has sent me scurrying back to complete the spraying. Apart from some remaining yellow leaves and a few more cracked rondos, it's all looking very healthy. The lime has been well washed into the soil, the grapes are swelling and the weeds are under control. Although the heat wave has peaked, the temperature is still in the high twenties.
I pulled up another cracked rondo, which came up very easily.

July 25th
Yet another heavy downpour brings the total rainfall to 20 mm in 3 days. That completes the lime treatment, but raises the spectre of mildew. A couple of bunches of pinot noir are now showing the dreaded powder, despite spraying, and the cobwebby leaves I removed have discoloured rapidly overnight.
I have made a start on removing the toughest of the remaining weeds from the aisles as I believe they may harbour mildew spores.

July 26th
I bought steel rods to stabilise the 7 loose fence posts. £20, so £1373 so far. They were simple to install.
Mildew has spread a little, but not enough to raise concern. On the contrary, it looks like it has been stalled. Gotcha!
Meanwhile the fragolino grapes have doubled in size to 10 mm and the size of the pinot bunches is impressive.
I continue to attempt to remove a particularly persistent weed called cat's-ear, which is dandelion-like, and will return if all traces of root are not removed. Once again, it was too hot and humid to continue work after 11: 00 am. More rain predicted for tomorrow.

July 27th
Stocks of cheap scree are running low, so I bought 6 more bags and a chasselas dore. £26, so £1399.00 total. 6 rows are now complete and total vines 75. Another rondo has cracked.
The heatwave may have peaked, but it is still too hot to work out in the open after 11:00 am.

July 28th
Yet another nocturnal heavy downpour brings the monthly total to 26 mm, about half the average. The black Hamburgs at home are doing well, but shows signs of erineum, so I will remove affected leaves and dust with sulphur before planting at the vineyard.
I dug up another cracked rondo. This one had really good roots, but no sign of growth.
There were 3 bunches of pinot grapes which were grey and were starting to split, just like last year, so I removed them.
The slates were warm to touch, whereas the grass was cool, so the system seems to work


A virtually weed-free environment

July 29th
The 5 day forecast predicts temperatures to rise above 30 again, with isolated showers, which is good news for the vines.
I bought 6 more bags of slate scree and was pleased to find 2 pinot noirs at £8 each, bringing the total to £1433. I completed the 7th row and started the 8th, which should be complete tomorrow. A very heavy shower interrupted work, but I went on to pull up another cracked rondo and planted the new vines, bringing the total of active vines to 77, 80% of the original 96.
There were 2 more bad bunches to remove and there may be more, but a strong breeze from the south is keeping the air moving through the vines, helping to keep mildew in check.
I counted 140 riesling bunches, which should yield a gallon of wine at least, if they fully ripen.
Total rain is now 30 mm for the month so far, so no fear about drought for the time being.

July 30th
Even more rain, bringing the total to 40 mm, close to average, but only a third of what fell last July. It is worth noting that most of that fell in the first 2 weeks, allowing the mildew to spread rapidly. I have read that spraying is not required after July. By this time last year mildew had killed off any chance of a crop. I have heard that August is likely to be wet, but the hot July has enabled crops to make up for the cold start.
Slate is inert and has no effect on the pH of the soil. Limestone chips would help to make the soil less acidic, in the long term, so could be added as a top dressing.
I picked up 6 more bags of scree and another pinot noir. There are 2 more in stock. £26, so £1459. I should have checked the bags. The scree pieces were much smaller than the others. The rain was supposed to stop, but it just got worse, so I placed the bags along the row, cut them open and spilled some of the contents, in the hope that this would deter thieves. We shall see. Thieves last struck on May 13th. This may have been around the time when the fairground arrived. A local woman said her house was broken into and the contents of her freezer were stolen during that period.

July 31st
One way of assessing the suitability of the climate for grapes is to count the number of days when the temperature exceeds 30 c. Last year there were only 4. This year it's already 10.
After a grey and damp start to the day, I picked up 2 more pinot noirs for £14 (£1473) and set to work deploying the bags of scree. These 20 mm pieces, being thin, actually give greater coverage and it only requires 6 bags to cover a row, so only 3.5 rows to go.
I dug up another cracked rondo and planted the black Hamburg from the garden. I was too tired to plant the new pinot noirs but I was pleased to realise that there are no more vacant slots left for more vines once they are in place. So that part of the job is almost complete. Pests have been eliminated and the mildew has been defeated, while thousands of grapes continue to swell. A watershed moment! There remain a number of finishing off tasks to be completed which should only take a couple of weeks, weather permitting.

August 1st
The 2 for 1 offer on scree ended today, but as the sign had not been removed, I still got 6 bags for the price of 3.
I had to take it easy because of the heat, but I got the scree deployed, leaving only 2.5 rows to go.
Over 30 c for the 11th time so far this year. There was a breeze, but the heat was still oppressive. It is significantly hotter in the vineyard than in the surrounding park. The grass looks parched, while the park looks verdant.
I also picked up a reduced price small pack of Rootgrow for the last few new vines and something called Grazers, a systemic bird and mammal repellent spray. It has been used successfully on cherry trees, so should be OK for grapes. It claims to be effective for up to 6 weeks. It's a calcium chloride solution with added trace elements and also serves as a plant tonic.
£26 in all, so, with fuel, £1500. Time to stop spending!
The grapes are moving to the stage of developing a 'bloom', a coating of yeast.

August 2nd
Not much to report. I cleared 2 aisles of major weeds and planted 1 new vine after uprooting another cracked rondo. After a recount, total vines now 81.

August 3rd
Vines now 82. 2 more bad bunches removed. The total is now 7, which is less than 1%! All growth above the top wires pruned, again. The grapes on 1 regent now turning red, but the bunch came with the vine and was probably cultivated under glass. Erineum was detected on a new vine, which must have been infested at source.

August 4th
Strictly speaking, another spray of Systhane is due on the 8th., and since isolated pockets of mildew are evident, this would be wise.
I dug up the last cracked rondo and planted a pinot noir. This brings the total vines to 83 and all available places are spoken for, so a significant milestone has been reached. However, there is space for 2 shorter rows to be created, which will involve some minor landscaping to fill a large depression in the ground, using the now somewhat redundant compost heaps.
Further research indicate that the yellowing of leaves is in fact chlorosis, which can be caused by magnesium deficiency, but since correcting this has not solved the problem, other causes must be considered. Excess lime is one that does not apply, but soil compaction and lack of humus certainly do. Excess phosphorus and low nitrogen don't apply either, but iron (required for production of chlorophyll) and possibly sulphur deficiency (which protects against powdery mildew) are the likely causes. Sulphur is acidic and would counter the effect of the application of lime, so spraying with sequestered iron seems the best place to start.

August 6th
2 options: Sequestrine or  Seaweed Plus Sequestered Iron, the latter being preferred for all the right reasons, and not just the 2 for 1 offer. Seaweed contains manganese and boron. I sprayed it on the affected vines.

August 7th
Overnight, the spray has already had some positive effect. I made a start at applying it directly to the soil, but this requires 15 gallons of water.
I put up a sign warning that both the leaves and grapes are harmful to eat, for what it's worth.

August 8th
I used up all the remaining Systhane which only treated half the site, so I bought some more. It now costs £7.50, so along with the sequestered iron and fuel, £20, so total now £1520.
The few dunkelfelder grapes are turning red.

August 9th
It seems that chlorosis was diagnosed some time ago, but it also seems that no action was taken to correct it.

August 12th
Drenching with seaweed plus sequestered iron required 130 litres of water and took 4 days to complete, but 4 vines have not responded to the treatment and may be dying.
All bunches have been thinned to remove unproductive and under-productive grapes. This should have zero impact on the total crop, but should improve overall quality.
Most of the plot has now been strimmed. I had to replace the nylon line, but the grade I used kept jamming in the spool, so may be too thick. The motor now works with the choke off so the carburettor must now be clean.

August 15th
The chlorotic vines seem to be on the mend, slowly. I have just learned of another menace, which may be responsible for damage: Botryosphaeria, a fungus which infects pruning wounds in the spring, causing distortion and chlorosis, and unchecked, will kill the vine. It is not unique to vines, affecting trees too. The horse chestnuts nearby certainly have a disease, with large yellow spots on the leaves. Boron, which is in seaweed, is said to be effective against it. A recent study found most UK vineyards are infected.
I sprayed the leaves around the early ripening black grapes with the Grazers solution, installed a rotating bird scarer and soaked the dry compost heap. I must get a compost bin to retain moisture and also an incinerator, as the wood pile is now too big to burn. This will free up space to accommodate new rows. 1 full length and 2 shorter ones.

August 17th
Strimming of whole site completed. This reveals the fact that, provided 1 compost heap is moved, there is room to establish 1 full-length new row. Now that the engine is working properly, it should be possible to do the whole site in a single session if done more frequently.
More grapes are splitting, but less than 1 per bunch. The rondo, regent and dunkel grapes are turning red, so I made a start with netting them.
I downloaded the data from the weather station, which revealed interesting results and justified the installation. The site is significantly warmer than my garden, with 40% more days above 30 c. air temperature, but the daytime surface temperature figures are astonishingly high, frequently above 40 c. during the July heatwave.

From May to August. The peak is 45

The second compost heap looks ready for use, so if I start digging the new row and adding it, by the time I get to the end, there will be no need to move it, as it will no longer exist.

August18th
I made a start on the new row, removing turf, loosening up the soil and adding compost. The earth is bone dry and compacted, so progress was slow, creating just enough space for a single vine. Only 1 earthworm was found. The dryness is at least a fork deep and clearly illustrates the value of both weed and moisture control. A thorough soaking and the addition of various nutrients will be required before planting new vines.

August 19th
30 litres of water doesn't go far! The pH level is about right. There are now places for 2 more vines. The first compost heap is all used up.

August 20th
Too hot for digging today, so I continued setting up new netting and pruned some more vines in preparation for rolling down the established nets. The flat-packed black netting is a breeze to set up as it needs no stretching and, being 2 metres wide, simply needs pegging to the ground, with just a few ties to join the sections, 6 of which are required to complete a row.
The grapes have stopped splitting, which is a relief.
The second and third compost heaps are rubbish - just dried grass roots and earth. Still useful to cover the 4th heap, which is mostly summer vine prunings, but I will have to buy some to mix into the rest of the new row.
There are just 40 more frost free days left for the minimum required for ripe grapes, so the end of September is a key date. A few pinot noir are turning red, but only on 1 vine.

August 21st
I bought 3 bags of 20 mm gravel to assess the coverage. It completed the 10th row and requires 7 bags to do a whole row.I also bought some rot proof garden twine. Total £13. The incinerators are expensive at £34, so I will look elsewhere.
The compost heap is actually OK once the outer shell of dried grass roots was removed and transferred to the new heap.
Trimming the fragolinos is quite time consuming, due to their high vigour, and so not yet complete.
The temperature in the open was 28. No rain.

August 22nd
The cheapest incinerator locally was £32, so I bought it, placed it by the woodpile with a dustbin liner over it and covered it with dead vines and wire to disguise it, as it is shiny and new. Once it has become blackened with soot and ash, it will be far less attractive to potential thieves.
Some welcome overnight rain had moistened the compost and before more rain came, I planted a black Hamburg in the new row before more steady rain set in. There is a regent with 2 ripening bunches so I protected them with net bags.
So total vines now 84 and total expenditure £1550, including fuel.
Homebase sell 20 mm gravel at £2.50 per bag so I can complete the last 2 rows more cheaply and make a start on the new row.

August 23rd
I picked up 6 bags of gravel and got charged for 5, so only £12.50. However, 8 bags are needed per row, so not much cheaper than the slate.
I completed trimming the vines and  thinning the bunches. A few more grapes have split, but it looks like the last traces of the effect of previous years of mildew working its way out of the vines.
Plenty of rain expected tomorrow, which is good.

August 24th
I compared the garden air temperature with the vineyard after the windbreak was installed (July 5th) and predictably enough, with a westerly wind the vineyard was 2 degrees warmer but 2 degrees cooler in winds from other directions, due to the chill effect of exposure.
Today was the wettest all summer.

August 26th
The ground is still moist from the rain. The warm weather has been holding on, but today has a distinctly Autumnal feel.
Another vine planted in the new row, so total now 85.
Another 6 bags of gravel, with discount, £12.75. Another 6 bags will complete the 12 rows, so the total cost will be £185, including the new row, which is far less than the original estimate.
Clearly, the rondos, regents and dunkelfelders will ripen long before the others, so will need to be harvested separately, but this year I doubt if there will be enough for even a gallon of wine.
Most of the new vines are now trained double guyot fashion.
Grapes on the chlorotic pinots are turning red and the leaves are looking much healthier.
Many of the riesling bunches are discoloured and may be of no use.

August 27th
It took about 1.5 tonnes of various aggregates to complete the job.
I netted the pinots which are turning red and hung some CDs from twine between rows at the Northern end so they reflect the sun.

August 28th
Another hot and dry day.
I finally erected the replacement centre post and replaced the 1.5 metre width netting with a 2 metre one over a row of pinots, which was an exacting and tedious procedure, so is not yet complete.
Olga asked me to identify her vine, which is at the same stage of ripening as my regent, with similar grapes but has many more bunches, being older. They will need netting. Combined with mine plus the few rondos, there should be enough to make a viable gallon of wine.

August 29th
Someone from UK Vine wants to visit the site.
I bought a Metpost ground spike and  a wooden fence post for the new row. The spike cost more than the post, which I had to cut down to size myself. I also bought some more staples. £17. Total now £1605.
Even with a sledgehammer, it was very hard to drive the spike into the ground and then I had to use wedges to get a tight fit with the post.
Trying to finish the netting is hard work, as I have to make my own pegs from stout wire to fix the bottom edge into the ground. I then started work on another row. This has 2 metre wide netting provisionally installed, but the length is only 10 metres. I only got less than half way with that. Considering that covering all rows requires 600 m2, this job is going take a long time.

August 30th
Despite the wind, another hot and dry day.
1 row of pinots netted. A bunch of treated dunkelfelder grapes has been eaten, as has the single bunch of premature regent, which was in a net bag. I suspect a fox chewed it, as the bag itself is intact.

August 31st
I untangled the mass of wire from Ickworth and made 12 x 15 metre coils, 6 of which will be used for the new row. I installed 2 ground spikes, so I just need 2 posts to complete it, apart from the digging and covering.
When I tried to pick a single dunkelfelder grape for testing, the whole bunch came away, suggesting full ripeness. The refractometer gave a reading of 13 Brix, which is the equivalent of sg 1045, far too low for wine. The pH was 3.8. The juice is bright red, the skin thick and there were 4 large pips inside. The taste is indifferent and they ripen too early to be used with other grapes. A waste of space!

September 1st
I picked up 2 more posts and completed the new row, including all but the bottom wire.
Weather prospects for the week ahead are dry and warm.

September 3rd
I prepared another bed in the extra row.
The rondos are still rather low in sugar, but taste OK, however the prematurely ripened pinot noir tastes superb.
A fox is eating grapes. This promises to be a real problem because netting is no defence. Nor chicken wire. I will have to kill it.

September 4th
I made a start with incineration. This will have to be done in batches because when the level of ash reaches a certain point, charcoal is produced rather than ash, which has to be separated and burnt again.

September 5th
This time I used a chainsaw to cut up the large dead vines. This used a litre of fuel and chainsaw oil as the vines are very hard wood and also slow burning. I had some visitors and gave them a guided tour so I didn't have to hang around waiting for the incineration to complete.
It was another hot and dry day but rain is expected tomorrow and there is still more wood to burn. Despite the lack of rain, the soil moisture level in the beds is high.

September 7th
Despite dousing with 2 gallons of water, the incinerator was still hot 36 hours later. I burnt the remaining wood then added the charcoal and made a start on moving the concrete slabs to make way for the 14th row.
Plenty of rain yesterday and more today, with a consequent drop in temperature, but only to normal for the time of year. Total rainfall for August was 30 mm, compared to 55 last year. Temperature wise, this summer has been comparable to 1976, so I have been blessed indeed!

September 8th
Incineration complete and a sackful of wood ash bagged up. Half of the new row is now complete, apart from gravel and 2 vines. Despite the rain, the newly dug soil is bone dry.
A sunny morning, but heavy rain later, with a dramatic drop in temperature to 13.

September 9th
More rain, so little done.
It turns out that fragolino is not a grape variety, but a wine made from isabella grapes. This variety was banned in France in 1934 for commercial production due to the high methanol content of the wine. It is a vitis labrusca with a strawberry and foxy flavour. Resistant to disease. Clearly it is a late ripener, as the skins still show no sign of turning red.

September 10th
2 bags of gravel £5, so total £1610.
A fine day. The rain has resulted in a spurt of growth for the grass, so I refuelled the strimmer and set to work. I only managed to trim half of the site before retiring exhausted. A petrol mower would be far more efficient. The grass has not been cut since August 12th., 4 weeks ago.
The isabella grapes are at last starting to change colour. I checked the sugar level of the ripest regent grape. A mere 13% but early days yet. It just goes to show that a ripe-looking grape is not fully ripe.

September 14th
Due to considerable rain, I decided to design some wine labels. Sadly the good colour laser printer has bitten the dust and the other one gives pale results, so I have ordered another.

September 15th
Having decided a lawn mower would be more efficient for cutting most of the grass, I picked up an almost new manual one for £10 and it easily fits in the car boot. As the grass is both long and very wet, it did not perform very well, but once I have completed the strimming, it should give a nice even cut and collect grass for composting.
Some ripe grapes have gone, presumably eaten by a fox, so I have tried to make the netting more secure. Snares might be worth considering.
Many more riesling grapes are splitting, but mostly on the mildew-affected bunches. Some riesling grapes taste ripe, so I have started netting them. The netting has become somewhat brittle due to the effect of ultra violet light.
Wood pigeons are now grazing on the grass but avoiding the planted area.
Some of the Isabella grapes are now pink and soft.

September 16th
All this rain has caused rampant growth of grass and consequent hard work with the strimmer. To make matters worse it got entangled with the netting twice and ran out of nylon wire, causing significant delays.
Meanwhile my design for roll down netting has proved problematic, largely due to the effect of wind and vine tendrils.
Improvements to the netting appear to have been effective against the fox, for the time being.

September 17th
The fox has paid another visit but no grapes have been lost. I have ordered a fox repellent called Scoot, which is supposed to make it think it's in another fox's territory.
I finally completed the strimming. By adjusting the position of the handle, the strimmer is less tiring to use, as no bending is required.
I had an intense session deploying netting, realising that the original installation was not completed, as there was nothing to protect last year. I noticed a blackbird landing on the ground between 2 rows, clearly undeterred by the reflectors or even my presence. Clearly, I need to ensure that the grapes cannot be accessed from ground level, as well as from above.
The grapes continue to ripen, despite the cooler (lower than average) and wet conditions.

September 18th
I collected the printer and produced sample labels which are fine. The running cost is about 10p for 8 labels. However, this brings the total cost to £1720, as the printer cost £100.

September 19th
The netting of the grapes is complete and the vineyard is looking great, but the cool weather has really slowed the ripening. Warmer weather is expected.
I had put down fox deterrent (Scent Off) by the rubbish bag, which seems to have worked.

September 21st
Autumnal equinox
I took samples with the refractometer.. The best result was a 'ripe' pinot noir at 15 Brix. This would only produce a wine of 8% abv and most of the grapes have yet to get this far, but it's still rather early.
The regents and rondos appear fully ripe, but are stuck at 13 and the flavour is far inferior to the pinot noir. Their disease resistance and early ripening are worthwhile properties, but it seems that, on their own, they are unlikely to produce good quality wine.
The rieslings are even lower in sugar, at 11, while the isabellas a mere 8, despite their early appearance, ahead of the rest.
I had 2 enthusiastic young visitors who enjoyed the samples I gave them.
There are no pressing tasks, so I just did a bit of leisurely tidying.
I have accumulated lots of 5 litre containers, which I will use as a water reservoir.

September 23rd
It seems unlikely that the isabellas will fully ripen under current conditions, so I am considering covering them with polythene to create a makeshift poly tunnel.
Meanwhile the black hamburg grapes at home are ripening, with a respectable 15% sugar level, but unimpressive flavour. Perfectly edible but undistinguished.

September 24th
A foggy morning and the rondos are starting to rot, but the isabellas have advanced considerably in the last few days, changing colour and increasing the sugar level to 11%, but the pH is a mere 2.6.

Rapidly ripening isabella grapes

The pinots are progressing steadily, but many are still green.
Much of the grass needs cutting again, but was too wet. However, the day turned out to be warm and sunny, which is most encouraging.

September 25th
Another very warm day.

Pinot noir doing very well behind the netting

I made a good start installing the nets which will be needed next year. It's still a tedious job, but I am getting more efficient at it.

September 26th
Some interesting results with the refractometer. The rondos, which I had written off, have taken the lead at 17, a 'typical' pinot 14.5, regent 13.5, riesling 13 and isabella 9. These results are both interesting and confusing, but all indicate that harvest date is still some way off yet.
In an attempt to get a reading from my pH meter, a pip got stuck in the probe and was very difficult to remove, so I must protect it next time with mesh. Nonetheless I got a reading of 3.0 from the pinot noir.
I continued netting but only completed half a row. I have now run out of nets and there are still 3 rows to go.
As I was about to leave, a dour-looking woman, carrying a rucksack, approached the site, made a phone call and made a close inspection, without speaking to me. This is not a good sign. Probably 'casing the joint'. With hindsight, I should have taken a mugshot of her and made that obvious. I suspect a raid is immanent.

September 27th
More tedious netting. I  have ordered more. £8.00. The fox repellent was £10. Including fuel to date, the total cost £1748.
The fox ripped a hole and detached a small bunch of pinots but does not appear to have eaten any. I fixed the hole and scattered some Scent Off. Another bunch was found intact on the ground below a gap I had failed to close at the top, suggesting a pigeon. I closed the gap.
I brought the grapes home. Together they weighed 56 g and yielded 50 ml of juice. From almost 300 bunches I should expect at least 20 bottles. The pH of the juice was 3.0 and the total acid was 12 ppt (as tartaric), which is far too high. However the sugar level is 17, which is promising as the target is 20.
I downloaded the weather data and found that in the 150 days from May, the ground temperature reached 30 c or more on 90 days.

September 29th
Another warm and dry day. No signs of fox activity or bird damage.
There are numerous small undeveloped grapes on the isabellas. In the process of removing them, a fair number of good grapes came away, so I will take them away for proper testing. Also 2 rondo bunches fell off at the lightest touch, so I will do the same with them as they are clearly fully ripe. A few pinot grapes are withering, but most are sound.
The dunkelfelders were infected with powdery mildew, despite spraying, although current growth looks healthy.
The isabellas still only have a sugar level of 9 and a pH of 2.8, but the specimens were not the ripest looking. The rondos are 15 and 3.8 respectively, with total acidity of 10.5 ppt (t). Although disappointed that only 4 of the 16 I transplanted survived, this turns out not such a bad thing as they are unimpressive compared with the pinots.
It looks like I could end up with a total of 40 bottles of wine. Without factoring the cost of my labour at the minimum wage and no rent to pay, the cost per bottle would in excess of £40! After 10 years, with expansion and the new vines fully mature, then at best, £2 per bottle.

October 3rd
Having been given 850 g of under-ripe chardonnay grapes, this was an opportunity to test the grape mill, which worked well, but would work better placed over a bigger bin. It also gave me a better assessment of expected juice yields. 12 'typical' bunches yielded about 600 ml of juice, so a total yield this year could produce 55 bottles of wine, at a cost of £30 per bottle, halving each year with potentially 160 bottles annually, at around £1 per bottle.

The grape mill

October 4th
The good news is that the isabellas are catching up, with sugar at 12% and low acidity. The bad news is that the pinots are not progressing much and the funfair will arrive in 7 days with all their petty criminals, putting the harvest at risk. I may be forced to make a premature harvest to avoid the risk of substantial losses.

October 5th
Yet more work netting for future crops.

October 6th
The fine weather continues.
The grape mill works perfectly on top a plastic dustbin, not only efficiently crushing all the grapes, but also stripping the stalks, which still need to be picked out after pressing. It is very easy to clean and a lot less messy than treading!
More bloody netting, made more tedious by the fact that it is not needed this year anyway, but light relief arrived with Olga, back from the cold Crimean holiday. She has a bottle of Ukrainian wine for me, as promised. This turns out to be something like a white port.
Her grapes are better than mine, 17% sugar, but they are in a sheltered, South-facing position, whereas mine have an average level of 12%, with the range of 9-15. Excluding the late-ripening isabellas, the average is still only 14, and with temperatures set to drop significantly by the end of the week, there seems little chance of reaching the desired 20%. Clearly the heatwave was not enough to make up for the late spring and the cold June, so it looks like vin ordinaire, with lots of added sugar to bring up the alcohol and potassium carbonate to reduce the acidity, but at least that's better than no wine at all!
The apple crop is really good this year, so I might use some of the grapes to make a superior red apple wine. Early results are quite promising. On their own, the apples make a poor wine and need sultanas to make it more acceptable. But adding freshly pressed grape juice is far better. To improve the colour depth I have tossed in 2 handfulls of dried elderberries plus oak chips for good measure. The oak seems to have reduced the acidity and the elderberries have turned it deep red.

October 11th
A cold wind has reduced the temperature to a maximum of 15 c.

November 5th
All of the grapes have been harvested: 33 kilos of pinot noir, 22 kilos of isabella and 7 kilos of riesling. So far 20 litres of pinot noir is ready to drink and the rest is in progress, with an anticipated 60 bottle total yield, mostly from 20 of the restored original vines. Now for some pictures:

The mill loaded with a batch of pinot noir, ready for crushing

The press, which can handle 10 litres of pulp

The crushed grapes and juice are left, minus the stalks, to ferment on their natural yeast to extract colour
After natural stabilisation and clearing, the wine is transferred to a 20 litre polypin, containing oak chips

From right to left: Pinot noir, fragolino, riesling and a chardonnay/apple mix from the garden

November 6th
The fragolino is clearing nicely, but the acidity is rising. Fortunately  the pinot noir pomace is starting to clear and the riesling is now fermenting healthily.

December 24th
I bought 2 new 20 litre oak casks for the red wines, adding £190 to the total cost, now at £1938!
Winter pruning is well under way, but 85 vines will take quite some time to complete. One of the old pinot noirs seems to have died, but I found a healthy cutting to replace it.
There was a hurricane force storm in the English Channel yesterday and all through the night, so it's a good job I pruned the large vines first. I cannot recall such a violent storm to hit London and the rain was torrential.

March 10th, 2014
The second anniversary of this post!
The winter storms demolished the windbreak, including a broken wire, but it is repairable. Since its job is to protect the vines when they are in leaf and fruiting, it would make sense sense to roll back the windbreak after leaf fall and redeploy it in the spring.
An unusually warm weekend after mild temperatures over winter has triggered bud burst for some vines, some 6 weeks earlier than last year, which was 3 weeks later than the previous year, so there is a very real threat of frost damaging the buds. Otherwise, there is a very long growing season ahead, which is great news.

March 27th
The weather station recorded a frost a few days ago. The temperature went as low as -1.5 c, but the buds can only withstand -1. However the frost was brief, so hopefully no damage.
The grass needs cutting, so I took the plunge and bought a new, 98 cc, self propelled petrol mower with a 40 cm blade and collector for £158 (with discounts) from Tesco. It's cheap and Chinese, but if it lasts 5 years, I'll be satisfied. My experiences with used mowers have always proved negative and push along petrol mowers are hard work, especially if the grass is long. The strimmer will still prove useful for the perimeter.

March 28
I managed to get the mower on the back seat of the car, picked up some petrol and finally got it started up. All was going well as it pulled itself along, rapidly filling up the collector, which I had to empty several times. Then the engine cut out and although I got it started again, it no longer pulled itself along, which made completing the job really hard work, but at least it got done in 1 day, which is progress. Tesco offered to refund or replace and said they had no reports of the same fault on this model. I opted for replacement but said I would have to return it to the store and therefore would refund me £15 for the inconvenience. The terms of the guarantee state that it is to be used as a domestic appliance, designed to cut grass at a max height of 8 cms., so like the strimmer, not really up to the job. I thought the 40 cm blade would be adequate, but each width of grass required 4 passes, a distance of about a kilometre in all!
I have received an email from the The Food and Environmental Research Agency regarding quarantine issues on imported grapevines and want to inspect my vineyard. Big Brother really is watching me!

April 1st
I met up with the DEFRA officer at the vineyard yesterday and he was a nice intelligent guy who gave me some data sheets about pests which are present in France but not in the UK. He set up some glue traps and suggested I wrap corrugated cardboard around the base of some vines to detect any root pests. He also said that the proximity of trees made the site more vulnerable to pests.
I got my replacement lawn mower and also picked up a 40 gallon water butt for free. Today, I bought the one remaining butt stand for £15 and set it up, filling it with 12 gallons of water to stabilise it.
The windbreak has been repaired, but a metre section has simply vanished.

April 7th
At last the cabernet sauvignon buds are swelling.
A 40 gallon water butt surplus to requirements was left out in a nearby street, so I nabbed it, bought a stand and installed it on site, complete with the 10 gallons of water I had been storing in gallon cans. I also recovered a compost bin which I had loaned to my neighbour, which I half filled with the remaining compost and some of the cut grass. Already 5 gallons of water has gone into the bins to moisten the compost, which was pretty dry. By the time I have completed digging and weeding the 2 extra rows, it should be ready to dig in, as this time I have built it up carefully in layers with manure, compost accelerator and chlorine free water.
I also picked up a hosereel, complete with some hose, in good condition from the same source. So now I have the makings of an irrigation system, of sorts.
The replacement mower propelled itself without breaking down, reducing the total time to do the whole plot to 1 hour of continuous mowing of pretty wet and thick grass, with several stops to empty the bin, consuming just 400 ml of petrol. This is just as well, since the park staff seem to have given up the job.
I decided to siphon off the pinot noir from the barrel for a second time. There was hardly any sediment this time. Clearly the oak barrel had done a splendid job in just 5 months. The wine was smooth, with more than a hint of vanilla from the oak in both aroma and flavour, so I transferred it to a polypin to make decanting into bottles very easy.
I then transferred the fragolino from a polypin into the empty barrel. The wine tasted rather bland and insipid in comparison, with no hint of the claimed strawberry flavour. However, with the addition of a mere 20% of the pinot noir, it tasted much better. Clearly the best plan is to combine all the juice from the American red hybrids with the pinot noir this year because the latter has the dominant and better flavour.
Still no sign of sulphate of potash in the garden centres, so I ordered some online, which actually works out cheaper, and delivery is free. It arrived today.

April 28th
There are about 1000 flower clusters already, which should result in 100 bottles of wine, almost 50% more than last year. It looks like the 2 remaining dunkelfelders will at last produce a decent crop.
There is little work to be done on the vines at present, now that all the top dressing has been applied and watered in. Therefore I have concentrated on completing the new row and organising the compost. What little remains of the original 3 heaps is going into the new row. The grass clippings were not decomposing well, so I have created stacks of the stuff with alternate layers of corrugated cardboard, the latter providing some airspace and carbon which should produce decent compost if kept moist.
The new row is on virgin soil, but the deep rooted couch grass needs to be removed. This gives rise to yet another compost heap. The exposed soil looks good, is pH neutral and quite moist but devoid of organic matter and worms so I have added compost and planted some cabernet sauvignon vines along with nutrients and water.
Regular mowing of the grass has exposed all kinds of deficiencies which had remained hidden. Strictly speaking they are of no great consequence, but persistent weeds are finding their way back into the beds, despite the weed control fabric and various aggregates. Controlling these weeds is rather time consuming and an uphill struggle.

May 1st
The new row is now complete, (after 6 months!) apart from the netting, which is hardly urgent. Most of the original 2 compost heaps have been used up in adding it to the new row, which is planted with mostly cabernet sauvignon. The total is now 85 vines in all.
I found erineum on one regent, which I have dusted with sulphur. Most of the mature vines are ready for spraying against powdery mildew. This was done on May 21st last year, so still about 3 weeks ahead in that respect, but much further ahead in terms of flower clusters, which are 6 weeks ahead.

May 2nd
6 mm of rain yesterday afternoon and overnight. Time to spray against powdery mildew. Conditions are right: a dull but dry day. 7 litres of Systhane solution was enough to cover the original vines and some of the new ones. It looks like the pinot noirs have already been infected and should have been sprayed a few days earlier.
I completed netting half of the new row, but a cold North wind proved too much for me. The grass is getting long so should be cut tomorrow, which is forecast as dry.

May 5th
I completed the mowing yesterday at the mid setting, which was straightforward, then tried the second lowest setting, which was problematic in places, but worth persisting with. In all, this produced a cubic metre of grass cuttings. A local home owner was so impressed, she has hired me to restore her overgrown garden!
The spraying was effective and all vines now look healthy.
There is still a fair amount of weeding to be done.
The strimmer is broken beyond repair, but I picked up a better one for just £30 at the boot fair, plus a brand new 5 litre oak barrel for £40, complete with bung, stand and non drip brass tap. The barrel leaked badly initially, but is now down a to a slow drip.

2015
May 23rd
A year after my last entry! The 2014 harvest was spoilt by powdery mildew yet again. Worst affected were the pinot noirs, despite regular spraying, while some others were totally unaffected. This year I sprayed with the biodynamic preparation 508, which I made last year by simmering 50 g of the common horsetail plant in 5 litres of water for an hour and leaving it to ferment. It has a strong sulphur smell, but apparantly it is the silica content which is effective in boosting the plant's resistence to mildew. So far so good, but it's too early to tell.
Over winter, 2 of the old rieslings and 1 pinot noir died, along with a golden chasselas, the roots of which had been destroyed by red ants.

July 7th
I decided not to bother cutting the grass. Regularly tramping round the site keeps it down and once it's grown to its full height, it tends to flatten out anyway. I've also adopted the same approach with summer pruning, leaving the canes to dry out on the grass. What is more important is to keep the developing grapes exposed, removing unhealthy leaves and shoots and keeping up the spraying every 14 days.
It seems that Systhane (myclobutanil) has been replaced with tebuconazole, which actually works out cheaper, but claims only moderate control over powdery mildew and fruit is not mentioned. Fortunately the disease so far has only appeared on a small number of leaves, mostly on the old pinot noirs, as usual.

November 28th
The rondos were the first to ripen and made a good red. Results from the first crop of chardonnay and pinot blanc has produced an excellent wine, with good aroma and flavour. I decided to try making a blanc de noir from the isabellas with much better results than trying to make a red. Many of the pinot noir grapes had become shrivelled, probably due to 'noble rot'. As a result, the sugar level of the juice is unusually high, although the volume is correspondingly reduced. The black hamburgs have mostly failed to fully ripen and are starting to rot. The few sound grapes are low in both sugar and acid with a bland flavour.




















1 comment:

  1. Hello Tony. I've read with much interest your blog on winemaking and cider brandy. I am a hobbyist winemaker and grapegrower in Bromley. Looking for some help with learning pruning and deciding on a pruning regime. Would you let me know if you have pruned yet and if this is something I could help you with so I can learn. Unfortunately I can't find a phone number for you so hopefully you will recieve this. Many thanks

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