Hat

It's sunny, I need a new hat.

Hard pruning

Roughly half way through pruning. Cutting right back to eradicate diseased wood which bears the mildew spores. Another year without wine but a necessary procedure to fix the health of the vineyard.

Blotchy/black canes after last year's diseases

Gate building

I've concreted in two 3m support posts to the one original post that was there when I took the plot on. Next step will be to build a custom gate using feather-edge boarding and hang it off this.

The vineyard, 1st January 2013

This year I will make wine. Drinkable wine!

Refractometer readings 10/10/10

2: 15.7, 14.5
4: 14.8, 12.9
6: 14.5, 16.2
8: 16.8

(Key = Row: Reading)

Average: 15.0

Bit lower than last week, not looking as good as I'd hoped then. I've now erected two new bird deterrents, which happen to look like rather warlike, silver owl sentinels:

Refractometer readings 29/09/10

1: 16
3: 15.7
5: 17.7
7: 16.1
9: 17.6

(Key = Row: Reading)

Average: 16.6

This is better than this time last year although I'm now purposely not testing grapes that look under-ripe so it may be due to that. I'll test every week from now.