More Stylet Oil + Foliar Iron & Zinc

No, really, that's it - did a quick spray before friends arrived for a weeklong visit.  Decided to give them 4 hrs of drip just to ensure continued growth.

Lateral Removal

Returned from a weeklong trip to the Pacific Northwest to a quasi-jungle! 

The vines are vigorously growing, so to manage that, and enable the next spray to get into the canopy, we spent hours pinching off laterals.  Then I reached out to friends that might be able to help, offering them dinner in exchange for an hour pinching off laterals.  Bryce & Lei were able to pitch in at the last minute and we got most rows under control. 

Then we dined on meat, home-grown bok choy, and ISO 9000 rice.  Yum!

Wines of the Columbia Gorge AVA

Tonight we're at the WineMaker conference in Stevenson, Washington (on the Columbia River Gorge).  We had a chance to taste a variety of wines from home winemakers and local vintners.  Winners (to me):
1st place: Cathedral Ridge Winery.  I especially liked the Zinfandel, Bruce was a fan of the Cab Sauvignon.  Best name goes to Bordheauxd Red (they are based on Hood River, OR after all)
2nd place: Strawberry wine, from Jason at Ancient Fire Wines in New Hampshire
3rd place: Rhubarb Wine, from a home winemaker in the Pacific Northwest.  I need to find the winemaker to thank him, then plant some rhubarb and try a batch.  Second time I've been impressed by rhubarb in a wine.

We learned lots today, which I'll hopefully summarize within the next few days.

2nd spray, 1st water of the year

 

The vines are looking good and healthy after their slow start this year.  Whew!  Just gave them their 2nd spray of the year: 1.5% stylet oil solution, plus 1 oz/gallon of iron & zinc supplement.  I managed to remember to omit the iron/zinc supplement from the segments I'll take petioles from, such that I get an accurate measurement when they get picked at fruit set.  Also gave the vines a token amount of water - just in case as we head out of town for about a week.

Spent Grain Recipes

Truth be told, I make both wine and beer.  It's the same equipment, and seems a shame for this equipment to go to waste.

Another thing I don't like wasting is the grain after making a batch of beer: usually there's at least 2 quarts of spent grain, that's high in protein, fiber, and b-vitamins.  I usually find recipes, but never archive what I've found.

Here are a few: 
An assortment: granola, chocolate chip cookies, yeast bread, et al.
Banana Peanut Butter Spent Grain Muffins, from another Lisa that didn't want another yeast bread recipe
Not a recipe, but a description from probably THE best veggie burger I've had at the Deschutes Brewpub in Bend, Oregon. Excerpt: Made with Black Beans, Vegetables, Spent Grain from our Brewery and Fresh Spices with Avocado-Tomatillo Salsa.

The vines, post-first spray.  Keep growing guys!

Shoots Emerging

Despite a late start, the vines have decided to catch up and are growing quickly!  Am now going through row-by-row to remove excess shoots, remove some of the kicker canes I'd kept on, and doing general clean-up of cover crop.  Tomorrow I'll spray the shoots that are long enough (over 8" or so) with a mix of Stylet Oil and Iron/Zinc supplement.  On a few randomly selected vines I'll exclude iron/zinc, since I'd like to do a petiole analysis this year (and the spray will interfere with iron and zinc measurements.)

Measuring the vineyard

How do you measure a vineyard?  We're looking to get in on a group buy of Bare Hand bird netting, and needed a linear measurement of the vines.
It was surprisingly challenging at first; we chose to measure a certain number of strings, but the string kept getting tangled up.  We got a total number but decided to double-checked our work with two tape measures and a notepad.  Here are the numbers:
row 9 = 98 feet; 19 vines
row 8 = 97 feet; 19 vines
row 7 = 92 feet; 18 vines
row 6 = 86 feet; 17 vines
row 5 = 82 feet; 16 vines
row 4 = 76 feet; 15 vines
row 3 = 66 feet; 13 vines
row 2 = 52 feet; 10 vines
row 1 = 42 feet; 8 vines (well, 7 vines and 1 citrus)

Two things we learned: our vines were planted with 5' vine spacing (5 feet between each vines, that is), and we actually have 135 vines including the scraggly non-producing ones.