Working in the vineyard during the last couple of weeks has required the crew to dodge a lot of rain drops. Rain in Iowa is usually accompanied by lightning and that makes a vineyard, with its miles of trellis wire, an extremely dangerous place to be. On dry
Read more →We just received our rooted cuttings of Steuben and will plant these vines over the next two weeks. Steuben is a Vitis labrusca variety that is difficult to grow in most climates and really marginal in Iowa. But the grapes make a very nice sweet rosé wine
Read more →We are a little more than half way done with the planting of vines this season and are going to take a breather from planting early this week to spray herbicide and mow. If time permits, we are going to also finish pruning the Foch that got
Read more →We got about one inch of rain on Saturday and a little less on Monday and because our vineyards are all well drained, this is all good as far as we are concerned. Of course, good drainage requires constant maintenance just like everything else does. In fact,
Read more →All 800 pounds of rooted cuttings have arrived, and we will start this week to get them planted before they dry out. The planting actually starts at Maple Woods vineyard where we are replacing vines that died during the winter. We are not expanding our vineyards this
Read more →We have finished pruning all of our vineyards, but in the process, discovered that some varieties in one of our vineyards are showing signs of damage from herbicide drift. This is the first time we’ve experienced damage from herbicide drift and we’ve gotten help from the experts
Read more →Weather permitting, we’d hoped to finish pruning at Meadowcreek on Monday, May 4. Then, we will focus on pruning St. Croix at Tassel Ridge and then the vines at Newport Lane. We need to start mowing as soon as we have some dry weather.
Read more →Buds have broken and leaves are forming on many, but not all, of our grape varieties. Edelweiss, Marquette, and La Crescent have budded out and with the warm weather expected this week, they will be nice and green along the top wire by Friday. Our Steuben and
Read more →We have just finished long pruning with our new V-Mech pruning system and are now working hard to get our short pruning all done by early May. We are starting short pruning Edelweiss at Tassel Ridge and will move through other varieties as fast as we can.
Read more →We started pruning at Tassel Ridge. More than 50% of the Tassel Ridge vineyard is planted with Edelweiss. Edelweiss has a peculiar habit of wrapping itself along the top wire making long pruning with our mechanical pruner very challenging. But, most of the long pruning will be
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