Last week, we harvested Petite Pearl, Verona, La Crescent and we harvested Sabrevois on Monday. Once harvest is done, we will return all harvest equipment to where it stays in the off season.
Then, the maintenance work starts. That includes pulling trees and shrubs from all of our vineyards, mowing vineyards, weed wacking under the vines in most of our vineyards, and spraying fungicide. Ultimately, we want to see vineyards with nothing but vines in the rows under the trellises so that when we apply fertilizer in the spring, it will be applied right where it will do the most good.
This year’s harvest was very light and that was because we didn’t fertilize the vines (in fact, we have not fertilized them for the past two years). We don’t want to over-fertilize but the fact is that harvested fruit takes a lot of Nitrogen from the vines. We need to get back to replacing it every spring.
