Summer is ending.
The days are shorter than the nights.
Yesterday was a long travel day. In the morning I was visiting with Chris Christie in Concord, New Hampshire. Mid-day I was dealing with Boston traffic around Logan Airport. Last night I was back in Medford.
I return my attention to the vineyard.
Before I left for New Hampshire I gave my little grape plants their final drink of water for the season and took some photos of the field. Look closely at the black tube about 18 inches high over the ground. A steady drip of water is coming from it. I left it on for two hours -- about a gallon of water on the plant itself, and another gallon on either side of it. The spots under the drips come together to make a continuous irrigated strip below the rows of grapes once the water seeps in.
Most Southern Oregon agriculture requires summer irrigation. My pumice soil is very fine-grained. It drains well -- perhaps too well. It is the consistency of ground sugar and sometimes powdered sugar, which means that even the tiniest of weed seeds start growing right after a rain. The rain two weeks ago, then the warm days, brought up a carpet of tiny weeds. I got right on it just before I left for New Hampshire.
Readers who farm and garden will understand my sense of contented satisfaction as I put my vineyard to bed for the winter. I wanted a "clean field" i.e. one free of weeds. My father warned about procrastination: The weed you don't pull today will be bigger tomorrow. He also said that there are moments when you can do things -- cut hay, plant melons, pick melons, kill weeds -- and you need to do it then. I had a time window to till up the carpet of tiny weeds when the soil dried out in the two 90-degree days just before I left. It is a clean field, except for the tiny strip alongside the grape plants that the tiller cannot reach.
The green visible next to the white grow tubes are weeds. I will hoe them when I get out to the vineyard later this morning. As my father warned, they will be bigger than when I photographed this 13 days ago.
In a photo looking down the rows there appears to be 100% plant survival. With close plant-by-plant inspection I found one or two missing plants per 100 among the bare-root plants in the Cabernet Sauvignons and the Malbecs. Some of the Pinot Noir plants came from the nursery as live-root grafts, with weak, dangling roots. Many of those didn't make it -- about 10% loss -- and I will need to replant next May.
I got a little damage from this worm -- a cutworm-- on the corner of the field that gets shade in the late afternoon. The worm is brown and huge -- the size and shape of my little finger. I put it on a dirt clod to photograph it -- a poor choice of background since it doesn't have color contrast. It is voracious and loves young leaves.
I sprayed the exposed leaves of the affected plants with a plant-safe pesticide, Sevin, which might stop the damage. I presume that the first hard freeze will kill the worm, but I will need to watch closely for this. Its eggs will survive the winter in the ground.
This experiment in grape-growing appears successful so far. It involved hard physical work for me. I lost 40 pounds between March and August.
People who have raised infants will understand the feeling of relief and contentment at this moment in the season. I am putting the field down after a busy summer. After a busy day watching, feeding, and diapering, a parent watches the baby doze off, ready for bed. The baby is worn out and so is the parent.
Whew.
But, of course, the "Whew" may not last. The baby might wake up and start crying, and one is back on duty. At the vineyard there could be some unexpected problem with frost, diseases, pests, wind, hail, something. There is always something. A farmer's work is never done.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com and subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
