Spray, Monday 24th June

Lots more leaves so used two batches of spray today

Spraying: Wettable Sulphur and Bordeaux Mixture

At time of writing, I've done two sprays two weeks apart. First was on Sunday 26th of May and the second on Monday 10th of June.

Designed to combat the powdery and downy mildew I had last year as well as maybe other diseases, I'm using a mix of 10g wettable sulphur and 100g of Bordeaux Mixture in 5l of water.  This is applied using a backpack sprayer. This amount seems to be plenty to coat all the leaves for now, it may have to be upped later once there's more foliage to spray. 

Photo from just before bud burst, so about 2-3 weeks before the first spray:

 

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!