Our New Vineyard

We are so excited to be started on our next two vineyards! We have two in the plans for this coming season: one located by the current vineyard and one located in Mount Pleasant on an hillside acre owned by another farmer. We will be planting Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot on our own property and more Villard blanc on the other property.

In order to fund this, we will be doing a crowd-funding campaign, so if you have a few spare dollars, please consider helping to fund our project. Every dollar counts. Every dollar goes towards buying another vine, another piece of rebar, another bag of fertilizer.

We are going to plant the vineyard a little bit differently this time. We learned a lot in our first planting, and hope we have made some improvements and realized a few ways to save money in the process. Since it takes approximately 3 years to get our first crop, we are going to establish the vineyard over the course of a few years instead of in one go, like we did last time. This year, we are going to plant the vines, put down the landscape fabric, and stick a piece of rebar beside the vines. Last time, we used bamboo stakes to hold the vines up. That was a nightmare. We spent countless hours picking up the vines as they would blow over and break the bamboo. Last time, we also constructed the trellis in the first year. The plants didn't really need it until the end of the second year. We are going to try putting the trellis in in the fall of 2017 in preparation of the first crop in 2018. That should help spread out the cost of establishment.

So why are we planting another vineyard? Besides the fact that wine sales are going well and continue to improve, we are striving to improve our economies of scale. From what we have seen, we will have to increase our input very little if we add on three more acres. I'm not saying that it won't be more work, but having a 4 acre vineyard is a bit cumbersome. We can't really afford full time vineyard staff or marketing staff for so few bottles of wine. However, if we put in three more acres, we will be able to operate more efficiently, and probably be able to afford a tasting room with a full-time staff person! This, however, might be a few years in the future. Remember, if we are planting the grapes in 2016, we won't have wine for sale off of those grapes until 2019. That's a long way off! A lot can happen in three years!

That's why we are counting on community support to put this new vineyard in the ground. We are using Indiegogo to help us out. We have three perks: bottles of wine, cases of wine, and gift certificates for vegetables. Please check out our campaign below. We are very excited to begin this new venture and all the fun wine-making things it will let us do! We will be able to add a barrel or two of Cabernet Franc to the Chambourcin to make it more complex! We will be able to add a barrel or two of Chambourcin in the Cabernet Franc to naturally increase the acidity and deepen the color! After three years of making Petit Verdot at Raylen, I can guarantee that it is the best varietal of grapes that we can grow right now in North Carolina. It makes a deep, rich, complex wine that can compete with any wine in California, especially when aged in some new oak barrels.

So please! Help us get the word out! Let's get the community involved! And come out to help plant. We will probably be doing this the week of April 11-15. Thanks for your support and we will see you out there.

going from 3 acres to 6 acres of vegetables

For the past few years, we have had trouble keeping up with demand. We have struggled to get plants or seeds in on time due to the fact that there was still something growing in the desired planting area and it hadn't finished producing yet. So what do you do? Pull it out early? or get your new crop in late? I usually made the wrong decision, regardless of whichever decision I made.

I knew we needed to expand, but I just didn't know if I was emotionally up to bringing another field into production, setting up a new irrigation system, having all my crops spread out, picking up rocks for days on end and building up the soil for another few years? Could I handle managing 6 acres? 3 was about to do me in. Would it alleviate stress or add to it?

The previous season, I had spoken with my agricultural extension agent about our weed problem. Being as close to organic as possible, spraying was not an option. He suggested letting a field lay fallow for a season, tilling it under every so often, allowing weed seeds to sprout, and then tilling it up again to allow more weeds to germinate. This would rid us of some of the seed bank that had built up over the years, and hopefully allow us to spend less time hoeing, our most expensive task.

If we were going to allow half of our farm to go un-used for a season, I knew we had to expand. We had one un-used field on the corner of Pitts School Rd and Hwy 29 that was going to be perfect. I had hoped to get started on tilling it up last winter, however, my dad had a heart attack or two and we got distracted.

I was nervous to think about the amount of rocks we would have to pick up in the new field. We had been picking up rocks in an adjacent field now for almost 5 years and the problem didn't seem any better. Would this field be the same? As I got on the tractor and started to till up the new rows, I reached down to feel the soil. NO ROCKS! It was gorgeous, fluffy, organic-matter-filled soil. Had my great grandparents already picked all the rocks out of this field for me back in the 1930s? Or was this field simply devoid of the rocks that plague our volcanic-based soils around Concord?

Well, regardless, planting in the new field was awesome. It was easy and pretty painless compared to the first time we planted in our other two fields. The crops turned out great as well. I was expecting to have to build up the soil for a few years, and in turn, not receive much monetary compensation from our plantings, but it was exactly the opposite! The field (called the BP field because it surrounds the BP station) became our most productive!

And thus we had space to rotate. After having left the vineyard garden (1.7 acres behind the vineyard) fallow for two seasons, we planted it in the fall. The productivity (although un measured because we don't pick fall vegetables unless we have them sold) has skyrocketed. The Gracious Greens program that we do with First Presbyterian Church has had record yields- producing more in this garden than in the previous three combined.

We are going to have to till all the fallow/weeded areas up one more time before officially allowing it to rest for the winter. I think it might be dry enough this Wednesday. However, it gets notoriously wet in the winter and might not dry up again until the Spring.

Having 6 acres has been an awesome experience. We have been more productive this year than ever before and planted all our transplants on time instead of waiting for previous plantings to finish producing before planting directly on top. However, there is going to be one big change to how we farm. Hoeing everything is no longer an option. When we had 3 acres, we had enough people to hoe. Now, with 6 acres, we can't find the people (or pay them enough) to keep all the crops adequately weed-free. We are going to have to switch to using plastic mulch for things like our greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, pumpkins, basically anything that we are transplanting into the field and not planting in a trenched- fashion. This will hopefully allow us to grow melons better as well. Normally the melons rot in the field before we can harvest them due to the wet, humid summers we have, and the slow draining red clay soil in which the melons grown. Maybe with black plastic, we will be able to solve some of the rotting issues.

I am currently looking into getting bio-degradable plastic so we won't be contributing to the land fill by growing 6 acres of vegetables. I've heard great things about it, so I'm pretty sure that we are going to go this route. I hope I'm up for the switch to another growing system. Every time you try something new in farming, you do your homework. However, there are always more problems than you could ever imagine or predict. Bracing myself again for the frustration that is growing pains. I'm sure to let you know how it goes.

My lifeless blog and (hopefully) its resurrection

Well, it's been over a year since I've blogged about the farm. But believe me- I have been thinking about it. There have been lots of things I've though about writing, however, I haven't had time, energy, or even a computer to write on. Ever since my computer was stolen from the repair shop almost 4 years ago, I've been going over to my parents' house to use their computer, or going over to my dad's office. Neither of these locations was conducive to blogging. I would get there with my to do list, make a dent in it, and be called back to the field or farm stand before I got to do the last thing on the list: Blog.

Then I got a letter in the mail the other day from a marketing company. They had driven by my business on the highway and wanted to know more. They had then looked up my blog and found it to be very out of date. They said unused blogs were devastating to small businesses. They were offering their services to my business. I looked at the letter and got very very angry.

And then I knew it was time to start blogging again, and I knew what I would be writing about in this first blog on my new computer: Why I have not been able to blog for a year, and why there is no way on earth I could afford to pay someone to market my farm for me (at least not right now, at its current size and form).

Before I start this rant, it should be known that I love farming, will continue to do it, and that we are doing very well financially for a small farm that is only 6 years old.

Now back to the explanation.

Over the past year, I have increasingly become very frustrated with people who don't understand farming (despite the fact that everyone needs to eat). Granted, that's a lot of people. But it only shows up every so often when people give me unsolicited advice based on their knowledge of small businesses. I know I should be graceful and accept it, but by golly, sometimes I struggle to see Jesus in those who think they could do a better job that I do at running my farm.

I do not live in a farming community and the majority of my friends do not farm. The majority of people in my town are not farmers, although their grandparents might have been.

Here are a few things that truly make farming different to all other industries, and which make meshing it with the modern world a bona fide challenge.

1) Farming is based on the weather.

I cannot schedule my life and I cannot tell you what we will be doing from day to day, week to week, hour to hour. I can tell with some certainty about what we will be doing in each month, and if we will be doing a delivery on this day or that, but if you want to schedule a meeting with me, please know, that something may pop up and I might not be able to be there. I cannot just close the computer and walk away, or let the next shift deal with it. There is no next shift. This, for me as a person who likes to plan and has friends who are mostly high-achieving type a sorts, has been a big challenge. But it's something that I wish more people experienced in their day to day existence. Living with uncertainty is great! My schedule is never truly crowded. My job won't let me schedule my life away, and for that I am grateful. I truly have to live in the moment because that moment is what dictates my actions. Not the yoga class which starts in 15 minutes or the church meeting during lunch.

2) Farming has extremely low margins on its goods and is based on having a supply of low-paid workers.

When I first started out farming, I looked at a lot of budgets, made business plans, and talked to other farmers about the business aspect of farming. I'm absolutely sure none of them meant to steer me in the wrong direction, however, I have found out that almost all of them got it wrong. Each farm is different and the lessons learned from other farms were never ever directly applicable to my family farm in suburban North Carolina.

Every day, I compete with hobby farmers who sell on the side of the road and don't need to make a living off their crops. In a different way, I compete with huge farms in California who employ migrant workers and have economies of scale I can't fathom. If you say that I need to charge what I need to charge for my products, then you have never had to walk into a restaurant and compete with Sysco or had a customer walk up to you and tell you that they can get their product more cheaply at the Walmart. I'm not saying that we base our prices off of those companies, but the larger food industry does have a huge sway on what we, as small, local, sustainable farmers can charge for our products. If I had to actually charge the customer with how hard we worked to get those tomatoes to the market, yall would be paying around $6/lb. Am I going to be selling tomatoes in Charlotte (or even Concord) for that? Hell no. I just can't do that. So I'll take losses here and there and make up for it on higher margin crops like the wine, or strawberries.

But the fact of the matter is, because our crops have such low margins, I cannot employ someone to do my job. I cannot employ someone to help me out here and there and still make a profit. I can't hire someone to run to Charlotte and do the deliveries. Paying $10/hr for someone to deliver the vegetables or go to market means that I just lost all of the profit I would have made. I can't take an hour off here or take a Saturday off there. It costs me too much money.

3) Farming requires long-term commitment to a very difficult job for which most people are very ungrateful.

You cannot go to school to learn to farm (even if you go to NCSU like I did!! Go Pack.). The learning curve on farming is VERY slow. Every year, I learn more and more about timing, varieties, and managing employees, but the fact of the matter is, that every year is different. I can't use a lot of the wisdom I gained in 2013 (that summer where it rained almost every day for 2 months) to the problems we are having in 2015 (it hasn't rained hardly since May). I've heard that it takes a lifetime of learning to become a farmer, and that's one of the great rewards of the occupation. But in a world where people get certifications and degrees every little whipstitch, dedicating yourself to a lifetime of understanding how to grow food is a foreign experience. I make more mistakes than anyone I know. Except for other farmers. Other farmers make just as many mistakes as I do. And I love being in their company. They are the only ones who can make me feel better. How was I to know that it was going to be super hot and all my lettuce was going to bold really early before we got a chance to sell it all? Or how was I to know that a variety of grape that I planted was just going to die in two years? Farmers make a lot of mistakes, and there's not a large safety net there for you when you fall. But again, this is a blessing in disguise. Learning to forgive yourself and keep going to the next season is essential. Even if you do have to wait another 9 months to try something out again. Our modern existence has almost destroyed our ability to fail. We are not used to needing this sort of radical patience and forgiveness that forces us to embrace.

4) Farming the land yields a certain amount each season. You can not make it yield more or order more from China.

Some seasons are better for some things than others. This year, our grapes didn't produce very much at all. It was hot and dry and our irrigation system was broken for a large portion of the critical time when we needed to be getting water to our vines. We will be purchasing grapes from RayLen this year. But still, we had to take care of those vines just as if they had 10 tons of fruit on them. We got insurance, but it's not going to make up the profit we could have had if our grapes (and consequently wine) had done well this year. So even if we marketed our products more, we would not be able to sell more. We currently sell out of the majority of our produce and compost very little compared to a traditional farm. In order to increase our profits, we can't just "sell more." There is nothing more to sell. We can't do a new marketing campaign and somehow make more money. There just aren't that infinite vegetables and bottles of wine to sell. If we want to make more money, we will have to bring more acres into production, be smarter about our labor costs, and operate more efficiently. We can raise prices, but as we all know, people expect cheap food.

5) Unskilled labor is not unskilled.

Some people can do manual labor. Some can't. Some people have, what I call, vegetable sense. Others don't. Whenever someone says that farming is "unskilled labor" I wish I could invite that person out to the farm for a day. Some people can't even do it for a few hours. They get so red in the face that I worry for their health, or they get bored with the monotonous task or hoeing or weed eating. It only takes a few minutes for unskilled labor to destroy a few months worth of work. I have seen unskilled labor weed eat crops and destroy irrigation, pick a crop of spaghetti squash before it's ready, sell lettuce once its bolted, break expensive equipment, and mess up deliveries so bad that I was ashamed to even contact the restaurants afterwards. Farming requires skill. Manual labor requires skill. And frankly, very few people anymore have the skills, physical fitness, and fiscal discipline to work in "unskilled labor."

So to the person who offered to help me with marketing, do you work for $8/hr? Cause that is what I would have to pay you to keep any of the money I made yesterday. Do you understand that even if you do a great job, it will be another year before I can expand my operation to do business with any of the customers that your campaign just got me? Do you understand that I just now was able to afford a computer after being without one for 4 years? Now I'll be able to keep up with my blog. Do it on my own time, after work, on the weekends, whenever I need to vent or be creative. I know I won't do as good a job as you would do, but for now, it will have to do.

All that being said, we are making huge strides to becoming profitable and more efficient. Every year, we learn from the mistakes we make and even if we have to wait a few years before we are put in similar situations, our knowledge of farming in suburban North Carolina is growing by leaps and bounds. But in a world that is so fast paced, goal oriented, and wants it now now now for nothing, farming is a hard way of life that makes little sense. Nevertheless, in more ways that one, it truly is the key to maintaining our humanity.

Winter Squash Fun and Deliciousness

Green Striped Cushaw amidst Butternut

One of the most frequent questions I get is, "How do I cook this gorgeous (insert name of winter squash here)?"

So I've decided to put together a brief tutorial on the deliciousness and preparation of winter squash. Winter squash aren't grown in the winter- they are grown in the Summer and stored for use in the Winter, unlike Summer squash, which is grown in the Summer and eaten within a few days of harvest. On our farm, we grow a variety of Winter squash and they are all delicious no matter the season: butternut, spaghetti, red kuri, pie pumpkins, green stripped cushaw, and tan cheese pumpkins. All of these, except the spaghetti, can be prepared similarly and can be interchanged in recipes, whether it is a pumpkin curry, soup, bread, risotto, or pie. The Spaghetti Squash is a bit of a different monster, so I'll discuss him first.

Spaghetti Squash awaiting purchase

To cook the Spaghetti Squash, cut in half long ways, scrape out the seeds, and put it on a greased baking sheet. Put it in the oven at 350F until it gives and inch or so when you poke the outside shell. Then let it cool for 15 minutes or until you can handle it. Scrape out the insides and use in recipes.

My idea: I like to scrape it out, toss it in pesto, chopped onions, cherry tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. Other people use it as a substitute for pasta (hence the name). It is normally prepared in a savoury fashion. The other squashes or pumpkins can be used in savoury or sweet recipes.

The Butternut is famous for being featured in soup and ravioli. Simply roast the squash like the spaghetti squash or cut and peel the squash (as my mother prefers) and boil it in a bit of water (photos below of both methods). You can then add some veggie broth, garlic powder, a bit of sugar, and nutmeg. Bring this to a simmer and finish with some cream (or almond milk if you're vegan). It is so good. You might also want to use a blender depending on how chunky you like your soup.

Green Striped Cushaw

Pie Pumpkins

You can do a similar dish with the red kuri, pie pumpkin, tan cheese pumpkin, green striped cushaw or pie pumpkin. I also like to do savoury soups with my pumpkins. They start out in much the same way- roast the pumpkin or squash in the oven until tender and then scrape it out once it is cooled. In the meanwhile, saute some onion and garlic in a sauce pan. Add the pumpkin when its finished, add some veggie bullion, cream/almond milk, salt, white pepper, and thyme or sage, depending on the taste you're going for.

Red Kuri- a Japanese heirloom that is SOO GOOD

Don't forget to add Winter Squash to curries or risottos. There are tons of recipes out there, but these are some that are like what I like to prepare.

Thai-style Pumpkin Curry
A Spicy Pumpkin Curry
Basic Pumpkin Risotto


A final way to prepare Winter Squash is PIE!! Sure, everyone loves the traditional pumpkin pie, but I'm talking a yummy savoury pie perfect for a chilly day (like we're getting this August). You can use the left over soup if it's not too liquidy, or you can use the soup recipe above and just not add a lot of veggie bullion or cream to make a fresh filling. Simply make a pie crust, add the thick filling, and bake! It's so good. It's so good, I'm actually eating a huge piece of it right now. Just as good as veggie pot pie. Who doesn't love pie?

half eaten pie

Tan Cheese Pumpkin- I used this  to make the pie

So hopefully you will have some ideas now on how to prepare your winter squash. If they have a bad place in them, just cut them out. One winter squash can make quite a few meals, so if you find yourself with extra pulp after the recipe, just put it in a Tupperware container and freeze it. OR make some pumpkin bread and share it with the folks at the office and become everyone's new favourite person.


Below are pictures detailing the cut, peel, and boil method of cooking the squash, and the roast and scrape method of cooking the squash.

A Red Kuri, cut in half

Mom likes to peel the pumpkin

And then cut it up and boil it with a little bit of water.

And here's how I like to prepare pumpkin (or in this case, a Green Striped Cushaw):

A cut up Cushaw, seeds scraped out

the top of the Cushaw

flipped over and getting ready to go in the oven

scraping out the Cushaw and putting it in a tupperware to freeze for later.

All my posts could be about the weather.

Calabash, the welcoming committee

After a particularly rainy week, things are beginning to dry out and we're enjoying one of the most temperate Julys I can remember. Last year's rain was annoying, but this year, we didn't get the constant rain, just rain here and there and no temperatures over 100. I hope this doesn't mean that we'll be getting a super-hot August to make up for it. But as always, we're prepared for whatever might happen. I'm loving this weather, but I know my okra and eggplant are not. These heat-loving summer crops are barely producing anything at all!

A sample of the 2013 Chambourcin

We just bottled the 2013 Chambourcin and it tastes delicious. I can't wait to share it with yall. We will have it for sale shortly after we harvest. When we take the grapes up to Raylen for processing, we will bring back last year's wine. Get ready for another fall party to celebrate its release!


In vineyard news, the grapes are all covered. Pierce's Disease is popping up here and there, but so far, no massive losses due to the disease like in previous years. I hope our new spray regimen is helping. It will be a few more weeks before we can really see how everything is progressing. It's hard to tell what's going on in the vineyard right now- the weather is so cool that the ripening of the grapes has slown down. A few weeks ago, when the temperature was normal, or even above average (as it was in June), we were full speed ahead and expecting an early harvest. This rain and cooler weather has thrown a wrench in the works. The weather will always keep you guessing.

properly pinned down netting and a beautiful blue sky

Also, due to the style of wine we are making this year, we will be harvesting the grapes a little less ripe than in previous years. We are making a dry rose with our Chambourcin and Villard blanc. We will crush and de-stem the berries together, let them macerate only slightly (the Chambourcin is normally very pigmented), and then press the grapes. I'm hoping to get some good acidity and crispness which will highlight the strawberriness of the Chambourcin and the pineappliness and passion fruitiness of the Villard blanc.

For the past two years, after harvest, we have simply rolled up the nets and mowed the vineyard and called it a year. This year, I'm going to attempt to do some pre-harvest care of the grapes. This will make the winter and spring better for the vines and for the employees. If we are harvesting our grapes in the second or third week of August, that means that we will have a little time after harvest to "pre-prune" for the winter. We can begin cutting out the stuff that definitely has Pierce's Disease, get rid of the weakest parts of the vines, (visually) choose canes or spurs for next season, and allow the vines to focus on hardening off the branches that we want to keep. I'd also like to give a dose of fertilizer to the vines right after harvest to help them harden off properly. If I can convince dad to mow the vineyard twice in a row, I'll spread crimson clover as a cover crop between the rows to add some nitrogen-fixing flora to our ecosystem in the Spring. All of these actions will ensure a healthier vineyard for the winter and make work easier for us in the Spring. We've got a long enough growing season that the grapes will appreciate the chance to chill out a bit before the first frosts.

Villard blanc, under the nets

The tricky part is making sure that we have finished all of our garden work for the fall so that we have time to do the vineyard work. I've been thinking about ways to time the planting of the fall crops, and I'm hoping that the first or second week of August won't be too early to get our seeds in the ground for the root crops. If we plant our root crops for the first two weeks of August, then harvest our grapes, that means that we can spend the last week in August preparing our vines for the winter.

We might have to put off planting the strawberries until the first week of September and the garlic shortly thereafter.

Last year, due to the rainy weather, there was a straw shortage, so we were unable to properly mulch our strawberries and garlic over the winter. This proved to be an expensive shortage. We had quite a few rotten berries and we had to constantly be weeding the garlic. Hopefully proper mulching this fall will help save us some tedious labor in the Spring.

The winter squash are coming in strong!

I'm sad to report a large loss of melons from our fields. They were a few days away from harvest and then we got a few consecutive days of heavy rain. Almost all of them popped :( Nothing is more frustrating that seeing all your hard work and potential profits go down the drain because of something so uncontrollable as the weather.

Well, that's it for now. We will be harvesting soon, so stay tuned for volunteer opportunities in the near future!

maters

And we're on Auto Pilot!

Happy Melons, Pumpkins, Squash, and Cucumbers

On the Fourth of July, I went out by myself into the garden, and unlike other times, I was struck by a sense of peace and completion. I didn't see any dying plants, no monstrous weeds, no taxing emergencies. I had given my employees the day off and I could handle the rest. I picked for a few hours and then took the rest of the day off myself. It was lovely. It was easy. Scarily so. But there's no catch here. Everything is looking so marvelous. I know something might go wrong in the next few weeks, but this year is so much better than last year! We've had almost a perfect amount of rain, gotten all our plants in on time (even the staggered ones), and only had one major catastrophe: corn seed maggots ate the roots of our cucumbers. We have replanted and are now starting to enjoy a good harvest of cucumbers.

Tromboncino Squash (or Zucchini), a new experiment which is turning out well!

Nevertheless, I know this is the calm before the storm. In the upcoming weeks, we will attempt my all-time favourite vineyard task: NETTING! That was sarcasm. The vineyard looks the best its ever looked. Liuba has done a great job getting everything looking like it should and it shows. The new Villard blanc vines are well on their way. The two year old vines are bearing a few clusters here and there. We're almost to bunch closure. We even have a few varieties of tables grapes which will reach veraison next week. That means we'll need to stretch the bailing twine out for the net supports next week and the week after that, we'll be putting on the nets for the whole vineyard. I'd like to delay this as much as possible, because we still have one more spray to put on the vines and also because we'll have to mow the vineyard at least one more time (and hopefully two closely consecutive times) to keep the grass down while the vines are under the nets for approximately a month.

Our Second Planting of Tomatoes

We got our first Hurricane last week, and I caught myself thinking about hail. It's THE WORST. There's nothing you can do about it and it can destroy your crop in a matter of minutes. Usually we get hail a little earlier in the season, but the berries are starting to swell now and soften, so they're becoming all the more susceptible.

But what good does it do to worry? It doesn't. So I'm going to try to enjoy these few weeks of relative peace before we start the fall garden, netting, and harvest time.

Last year's Chambourcin (2013) is coming out of Cold Stabilization right now. It spent about 3 weeks at 27 degrees. Tomorrow, we'll start filtering and getting the wine ready for bottling. That means that we'll be bringing home another vintage soon. This one is much bolder than the previous year's. Not quite as high acid as 2012. We'll bring it back from Raylen when we deliver our grapes (approximately the first week in September). It will probably be available for sale in early September. But don't worry- we will have a party to celebrate its arrival! Hope to see you there!

Where did May go?

Baby Villard blanc vines getting sprayed with kaolin clay

This Spring just flew by! It seems like only yesterday we were putting our first lettuce plants in the ground and worrying constantly about freezing temperatures! Now we are getting ready to harvest our first cucumbers, green beans, peppers, and squash. May was a busy busy month with an event almost every weekend: Festivals, Wine Parties, and Farm Tours. We have now sold out of our shares for our CSA and the Farm Stand is open every week with all sorts of locally produced goods.

The vineyard is looking great. After last year's Pierces Disease, and then the cold winter, we now have a strategy for rejuvenating the vineyard. We are going to attempt to cane prune this year instead of spur prune. This will let us get large sections of the vines out which are no longer producing. We are also simultaneously training up replacement trunks for the vines. With a few new sprays, I hope to have the Pierces Diseased portions well under control in two years. Nothing is a quick fix in this business.

Baby Cab Franc

The 10 Cabernet Franc vines we planted this year are doing well. We have yet to decide what to plant in our next field. Remember that trip I took to Texas? And how we planted two test plots of Blanc du bois and Lenoir from Texas? Well, from what we can guess, thanks to all the rain last year, the vines did not grow as much as they should, and they did not harden off properly before the winter. And when it got down to 6F a few times this winter, that just did the little fellas in. We had a 60% loss in one vineyard and a 90% loss in the other. I haven't given up hope for these varieties, but I am now very skeptical about their winter hardiness.

The Vineyard Garden

Right now, dad is putting on the second coating of kaolin clay. The berries are beyond pea size, so harvest is not too far away. About one more month till we will put the nets on! I simultaneously await and dread that week.

The garden is looking good. By far the best job that we've ever done in the Spring. It's all about timing: getting the ground ready in the winter so that when the rains come in the Spring you're not delayed due to soggy soil. The hottest item this year? Peas! I will plant half as much lettuce next year and twice as many peas. They are awesome, delicious, and in high demand.

Our First Bell Peppers of the Season

I've already seen my first Squash vine borer adult flying around. Those little bastards. I wish I could catch them and smoosh them, however they always seems to evade me.

It's hard to believe that only a year ago, we were just opening up our store with hardly any produce inside. One year later, we've got plenty of things for sale and we've already had one of our best months ever. We are truly grateful for all the support and blessings we have received. Now if this rain will only stay away until the kaolin clay dries!

awaiting tomatoes and tomato sandwiches