2016 Season

4/15  Sprayed grapes and blueberries with dormant sulphur spray.  Almost too late with this early spring.  Temps in the 70's have really pushed things along.
Wine notes:  The cherry from last year is really looking good both in appearance and taste!  I hope we get a good crop again this year.  The tree is just starting to bloom.  On the downside, the blueberry melomel is simply terrible and will have to be dumped out.

4/24  Sulfur and captan.  Also sprayed blueberries and rasberries,  Add Nova to the mix next.

5/5  Sprayed with captan, mancozeb and nova.  Need to do some pruning.

5/15  Same as above.

5/26 captan, mancozeb, quintec.  Last mancozeb application.  Deer have been getting more fresh shoots than I care for.  electric fence next year. Tried a bottle of the 2013 Red the other night, last bottle I think, and it was surprisingly good.  I think I really need to let the reds age a bit.  Nice 2014 White Blend as well.  Still have a few of those. :)

6/7  captan and quintec.

6/19  captan and nova.  Grapes are looking great, with many, many clusters.  Very aggressive plant growth.  Japanese beetles are out in full force, threatening to be a huge problem this season.

7/2  Captan and nova.  Many grapes, heavy clusters.  Did get hit with mummy berries pretty badly, a number split open.  still looking for a very good harvest.

Outdoor Oven

Well, this isn't directly related to the vineyard, but good bread and pizza do go well with wine.  So, I'll document here our process building an outdoor wood-fired pizza/bread oven.  Why I decided to take on such a project given my recent bout with sciatica is totally beyond me.  Fortunately, that hasn't really slowed me down much on this project, but I've had tremendous help from a good friend, Steve Rennekamp.  Without his tools, help and expertise we would never have gotten this far already.
I'm following the basic plans I got from the BrickWoodOvens site.  Very good directions, and we have followed them so far with little change.  I definitely plan to buy some tools from them, since their plans have been a huge help.
Not only did we decide to build the oven, but we also decided to replace the patio where the oven will stand.  That will be tackled as the oven part is being built, since that will be done in a number of stages with some waiting time involved between each phase.

Here is the area before the work.  The flag marks the location of our gas line feed, which should be well below the area we will be digging in.  I never encountered it when we first put in the old patio.

 Here is the form for the base.  It was poured 5 1/2 inches thick, with reinforcement.

 "Grambo" made sure no animals would go traipsing over our fresh concrete.

 This is the old but very reliable mixer Steve brought to the site.  Definitely save a lot of work.

After the pour, putting tennis balls on the re-rod that will connect the base to the concrete block part of the base.

Here is the concrete block base.  The basic plans called for a base up to 5 blocks high, but we felt this was way too high.

Building the top part of the base.  This is the 5 1/2 inch hardened concrete section that has an insulated center, with a 5 parts perlite to 1 part Portland Cement mix.   This part will sit right under the oven itself.  Here, thanks to Steve's suggestion, we departed from the plans which called for building this section in 3 parts.  I agreed that even 1/3 of this section would be very heavy, so we built it with supports instead.  The pour went well.

 This is the finished upper section of the base.  The two boards across the structure hold the center cavity section, which will later have the perlite mixture installed.

 While waiting for the top base section to dry, I built this frame form that I will build the oven around.  If I can't tear it out after the oven is built, I'll just have to burn it out!

Here is the mostly finished base.  Note the dark area in the top, which is that perlite insulation area.  At the base, we'll have brick coming up part-way, with an earth-tone stucco finish the rest of the bottom of the base.  On top of the base, firebrick will be placed in a herringbone pattern which will be the cooking surface of the oven.  It is in a herringbone pattern because that will make it easier to pull things out of the oven without catching on brick edges.

Kathy has been working repurposing the tiles that made up ourold patio, using them to create a border along the flower beds adjacent to the house.  Nice work!

Almost finished laying out the firebrick base.  This was a tedious process, workingt to keep the firebricks level and tight against one another.  It took all of a day to finish this, with a lot of cutting along the edges.

 It took a long day to put up all the firebrick on the form.  Fortunately it was a mild day and the rain held off.  I still have the back to put up yet.

The refractory mortar is a mix of Portland Cement, Dehydrated Lime, 200 mesh fireclay, and fine silica sand, in a 1:1:1:3 ratio.  I mixed 2 qts. of each (6 sand) in the wheelbarrow.  The mortar was really getting stiff by the time I was finished with one batch.  It does stick well.  We'll see how it holds up.

 Here is the oven with the firebrick installed, except for an arch in front.  After that is installed we'll spend about a week to two weeks drying it out.

Below is the oven all wrapped with two inches of ceramic fiber blanket, aluminum foil and chicken wire, ready for the stucco.

One of six "curing" burns.  We needed to build fires, increasingly hot, over a period of days to dry out the firebricks and mortar, to help prevent cracking.  Small cracks did appear in the mortar, but this is normal due to expansion and will not be a problem for the oven.

 Steve is working on finishing touches with the first stucco coat.  It took almost two bags of stucco base, about 160 more pounds.

Here it is with one stucco coat, drying.

Added the door.  I want to add some design to it, but that can wait.  The door has 1/16th inch sheet metal behind it.

The area for the patio is now roughly dug out and almost ready for gravel.  That was a fair amount of dirt to remove, to get 7 inches below grade for 4 inches of packed gravel, an inch of sand and two inches of paver.

Now we have 3 inches of washed 3/8 inch gravel with 2 inches of crushed limestone they call limestone screenings.  The object with the blue tarp is the compacter, which really packs this down so it's almost like concrete.  We will do a little leveling and it will be ready for sand and pavers!

July 9

Pavers installed!  What a job, and again special thanks to Steve for helping with the equipment and muscle!

We'll put the locking paver sand in later today and will then need (sometime in the near future) to fill in around the pavers and do some grading and seeding.  For now, we're concentrating on getting ready for a Colorado trip and a fly-in Canadian fishing trip plus much neglected yard/housework.  The final exterior finish on the oven, which is totally functional right now, will come later in the summer or early fall.

Bricks are cut and ready to be installed.

Whew.  The oven is basically done!  I need to finish the base, but the hard part is done.  

Here is the before and after.

2015

I have only lost one vine, aurore, to winter.  The plant is drawing water up but the buds seem to be dead.  It has always suffered from a lot of disease anyway, so I will replace it next year.  I did buy a new reliant seedless but planted it in the back.

Very nice spring, plenty of rain.  I don't think we've seen things bloom this well in a long time.  Fruit and flowering trees were just fantastic.

May 2
Sprayed at half-inch shoots.  Mancozeb, Captan and Quintec.

May 10
5 to 7 inch shoots.  Some vines still slowly budding out.  Mancozeb, Nova, Captan

May 13
Just noticed two buds on the aurore I thought was dead.

May 22
Sprayed with Mancozeb, Quintec and Captan.  Cut out some dead wood prior to spraying.

June 2
Sprayed with Mancozeb, Nova and Captan.  This will be the last Mancozeb spray since it needs 66 days pre-harvest interval.  Vines are really growing, with a good amount of clusters.  This has been a fantastic spring, with everything blossoming.  Unfortunately, it looks like a couple of our Johnny Appleseed trees are in distress.

June 23
Trimmed under grapes, long overdue.  Also sprayed--long overdue--Quintec, Captan and a small dose of copper.  Will have to monitor to see how the copper affects things.  Grapes are looking great, in spite of lots of rain and high humidity.  A spray last week would have been better but it didn't happen.  Saw a few split grapes on concords, but no anthracnose spots yet on anything.  Japanese beetles are here and chewing on the upper leaves.
Picked about 9 lbs. of sour cherries today, will make a couple gallons starting tomorrow.

2014

May 17  First Spray

Mancozeb, nova, captan, sulphur
Vines are very mixed, with the Frontenac Gris well ahead of all others.  They came through this long, tough winter in great shape and already have many little grape clusters on them.  We had a light frost last night, but hopeful there was no damage.
Bought three new Frontenac Gris, and two look good but one hasn't put out any good buds yet.  All the Cayuga whites have now died.  One de Chaunac looks bad, but a lot of new growth at the base.    I need to cut out the Cayuga and put one of the Frontenac in its place.
I did do a lime sulfur dormant spray in April

May 26

Mancozeb, nova, captan, copper

One Frontenac gris continues to look lifeless, though when the tip is clipped it appears green and supple.  Still give it some time.  The 4 year Frontenac gris plants look fantastic, and we will get a good harvest from them this year.

June 3
Quintec, captan, sulphur

Need to protect the basal shoots on several plants, particularly the De Chaunac that has gotten so weak.  May need to use one to replace the trunk.  No signs yet of disease.  Lighter than normal outlook for the Niagaras, but some vines have good, vigorous growth and grape set.


June 12
Quintec, captan, sulphur
The nortons appear to have some sulfur burn.  Examine them after this application to see if this seems to be the case.  At any rate, stop using the sulfur.
The Frontenac gris have an insect problem, most likely grape phylloxera.  I cut off some of the worst leaves and applied an insecticide dust.  The problem does not seem to affect any of the other vines.

June 20
Nova, captan
Grapes looking good.  First sighting of a pair of Japanese  beetles.  Crap.  Definitely some sulphur damage on norton grapes.  Have to watch that.   All three Frontenac Gris are alive.  Should have a good harvest on the three mature vines.

August 8
Quintec, captan

Grapes are well into verasion.  Seedless varieties are early ripening and some can be picked.  The frontenac gris are coming along nicely, with the niagaras still a bit behind.

Wine time

We started 5 gallons of Niagara last week.  It's still in the primary fermenter but about ready to transfer.  Today Kathy started picking some Concords for juice.  They look very healthy and are ripening fast.  I never put bird netting on this year and had only a little damage.  The honey bees are all over the bird-pecked fruit.

2013 Harvest

Last week, I took the St. Croix, Frontenac and some of the De Chaunac and blended them.  They are in the primary now, looking and smelling good.  I love this stage of the wine.  This week I will harvest the rest of the Niagaras, which are looking pretty good though the birds are starting to get on them.  I did not put up bird nets this year--just too busy, too hot, (too lazy?)  I have enough already for 2 gallons and will get enough for two more gallons, the rest going into juice.  Concords, from which we'll make juice, are still pretty slow, though the red seedless Concord bore heavy, very clean bunches that we are still enjoying.

Moore's Diamond

I picked this one today.  It had suddenly started to have many more bad grapes, and the honey bees and especially bumble bees were all over it.  I still got a surprisingly good harvest from it, getting a solid 8 quarts.  I'll make two gallons of wine and have 3 qts. of juice.  It's amazing how quickly the grapes can change from day to day.  This variety is always a bit earlier than the Niagara, though they are so similar.  I was planning to do the Niagara on Thursday but I might wait.  I'm slowly learning I have to let the grapes let me know when to pick, not the calendar.