Luci Khulman is waiting for harvest at Rose Bay Vineyards.
grapes
Dreaming in Green
This morning we woke up to find we’d received a fresh dusting of snow overnight. Pretty? Yes. But it was difficult to detect any signs of green in the landscape.
(Geranium cuttings biding their time on the kitchen window sill.)
C’mon Mother Nature! March is the month of things green. For instance, Number One son’s birthday is on St Patrick’s Day, thereby painting the weekend with all things green…. Mostly an artificial green.
Its the time to plant seeds in anticipation of this years garden. Onion, tomato and pepper. But those green are months away.
So, I’m taking you back to last summer’s garden for an uplifting hit of that verdant shade.
Some garden froth.
A Beach Plum before it’s time.
Garden thyme.
A harvest of peas.
Some Seyval Blanc.
Tonight we observe Earth Hour. Just another way to get our “Green” on.
And … last night’s dusting of snow had melted away during the day, confirming that we are on the other side of winter. Greener days are ahead!
WPC – it IS easy being green
Victory in Harvest
900 pounds of grapes! This year’s grape harvest represented a brilliant victory for our little vineyard. Last year, raccoons had a bit of a party just a few nights before harvest. They left us with 320 pounds of fruit. Nice, eh? We are struggling to figure out how they managed to compromise the electric fencing, but they did it. This year, however, we were vigilant – patrolling the fencing every evening and morning for the weeks before harvest – and it payed off beautifully.
That 320 pounds took us all day to pick; we were a team of just two – one removing the bird netting, one picking grapes. This year however. we were joined by family and friends to make a bit off a party of our own. Not only were we finished by early afternoon, we had lots of fun together.
Take that raccoons! This year, it was our turn!
WPC – Victory
Setting Boundries
The birds are welcome to the sunflower seeds, the last of the raspberries and blackberries and the odd over-ripe tomato. But they must not touch a single grape! Just two more days till harvest … with fingers firmly crossed.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Boundries
A Juicy Reward
The very first pressing of our first crop of grapes.
When we planted the vines, we had a lot on our plate. The house was under construction, we committed ourselves to completing all the interior finishing, the children were young and very busy, and I re-entered the workforce. So….the timing was not ideal.
And even though our little vineyard graces a nice south-facing slope, we can’t avoid the fact that we are perched on the edge of the North Atlantic Ocean. Our winters are long, our summers are short and spring is all but non-existent. (Autumns, however, are glorious!) There is no guarantee of the sufficient heat units required to ripen wine grapes. So…..the climate is not ideal.
For the first 3 – 4 years, the deer (bless them) rejoiced in these new baby plants, chomping off every fresh shoot leaving the vines looking more like bonsai trees. When we had the resources, we fixed that problem with electric deer fencing (and a concoction of peanut butter and vegetable oil). The vines grew beautifully. When the grapes were ripe, flocks of birds descended and cleaned us out. Enter bird netting. It worked beautifully until the raccoons figured out how to un-clip the bird netting. The result was a raccoon party in the vineyard. So we bought and installed raccoon fencing. Take that! So……the situation is not ideal.
In spite of all of that, after about 8 or 9 years and a steep learning curve, voila! We were rewarded with (two days of removing fencing, netting and more fencing, back breaking harvesting, sorting and pressing by hand) several gallons of our very own grape juice……ready for fermentation!!
A very satisfying reward!
Rose Bay Letters 