Hot and dry

Our new favourite photo

It's been really hot and dry for weeks now. Even with watering every day, some plants are dying. We haven't watered in the vineyard and so far they are okay. The vines have not flowered yet so I am hopeful they can hang on until the weekend when a break in the heatwave is promised. 

The day before yesterday, we had Pim's on 'the beach' by the pond and watched the bees scooping water ferociously and flying off to the hives. It was too hot without shade and we were in the bees' flight path, so we gave up and went to sit on the porch. Yesterday it was so hot that we decided to have our drinks in the vineyard in the evening shade of the orchard. It was quite cool. I am so grateful that we have shade from the trees, the porch, umbrellas, and now the shed. 

Who in their right mind would have expected Mediterranean conditions in Ireland. It is the 6th of June and the stats show no rain (0 mm) and 17.8 average temperature. That's hotter than we've gotten in July. Everyone is walking around town in their holiday clothes. I've been wearing espadrilles for the first time ever in Ireland. I suppose I'd better learn to enjoy it. 

Oh, and by the way, Australia has now followed NOAA and issued an El Niño alert. They say there's a 70% chance of an El Niño developing before the end of the year. NOAA says more like 90% likelihood. As Australia's criteria are more rigorous than America's, it's a high probability alert. Get ready for accelerating climate change. 

Our little bistro in the vineyard...a bit slopey. 

Everything is growing like crazy

Solaris has a ton of buds

This little guy was almost invisible munching on strawberries

0 mm rain and 17.8 average temps for the 1st week of June

 

Full moon rising

Alex took out some willows and opened the view up

Stunning view from the top

Nice place to rest and contemplate jobs

My red bench at the top of the vineyard

Vanessa grapes feeling the heat 

Strawberries are burning in the polytunnel

Fruit trees holding on in the polytunnel

At least I can get out on the water

Solar power

I just wanted to post this chart to show why it's possible to grow things outdoors in Ireland. It’s about how much solar energy is received by latitude due to the tilt of the Earth. If you’ve been a grower for a long time you know that the peak months of June and July are when plants really motor away; this is because of the amount of sunlight they receive across a 24-hour period. 

The graph shows the energy that the equator gets (blue line), the other lines are latitudes moving away from the equator. When those lines cross or go above the equatorial line, it means that latitude is getting the same or more solar energy than at the equator across a 24-hour period. For us from about mid-May until late August we get more insolation than anywhere along the equator, which is why they are the peak months for growth and it’s all down to the length of the day. The equatorial day is nearly always 12 hours long; in summer here in Ireland, we get nearly 18 hours of sunlight. That is why we can grow so successfully outside in the summer. It’s a short period, but productive!

Brits shifting to new varieties

Chardonnay grapes
BerndtF, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are among the grapes being cultivated in England with notable success. Pinot gris (Pinot grigio) is another. Lesser-known varieties like Pinot Meunier are also making it to the table, taking the British still wine production out of the white and into the red realm. And short-season varieties like Madeline Angevine and Baccus may be worth trying.  This is very encouraging as it means we were on the right track. Here are a few new varieties highlighted by Decanter. And I definitely want to sample the Bolney Wine Estate Pinot gris.

And then there's also Sweden which is coming along fast as a wine-producing region. A fine place to make ice wine. They grow mainly Solaris and Rondo, which we know all about. And they make the point that their grapes get a long day of sunlight up there, as do we. Let's hope for a good season. 

Alex and I both had some respiratory illness over Christmas, most likely RSV by the symptoms, so we're ending the year with a bummer, but we'll be getting out into the vineyard as soon as it clears up. Time to start pruning.  

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and here's to hoping for a much-improved year in 2023. 

Our dormant vineyard last week

Views from the top of our hill. 

Winter drama

Sun setting over Daria's Vineyard

Winter has arrived in the west with all the drama that later sunrises and earlier sunsets create. Today was a spectacular day, after the morning fog, crisp, dry for the most part, and still -- very still. The kind of still that recreates the landscape upside down in reflections on the water. I just love watching upside-down sheep romping along liquid green fields. 

In Ireland, winter arrives officially on the 1st of November by the Gaelic or Celtic calendar. Winter or Geimhreadh starts the day after Halloween (referred to in Ireland as Samhain). The Gaelic calendar also protends that February 1st is actually the start of spring.

Today's sunrise at about 8 AM

Starts                         Ends                              Meteorological Winter in Ireland    1st of December        31st of February Astronomical Winter in Ireland       21st of December      20th of March Traditional Gaelic Seasons              1st November          31st of January

The wispy clouds did their magic at both sunrise and sunset, turning hot pink in salutations to the sun. The occasional drip of showers created rainbows all day long without actually interfering with outdoor life. It made for solemn reflections about life for the planet's now 8 billion people, a landmark reached yesterday.

There is still a lot of activity in the garden. The bees were buzzing mid-day as the air warmed up. One rose bloomed in the vineyard in anticipation. Lots of wildflowers are still showing off. Yet storm clouds on the horizon foretell what's to come. 

The short days (sunset at about 4:30 PM now) make working in the garden a challenge. But every good hour is put to maximum good use. Yesterday, we made a new flower bed for the agapanthus we brought over from Ross House and cleaned up parts of the flower gardens. But the messages from biodiversity groups pleading to leave the leaves on the ground to provide shelter for bumblebees and other insects convinced me to stop short of sweeping them all up. It's all in the interest of pollinators, those they pollinate, and those that eat them. I can surely put some work off if it's going to save the world. 

Disappointing harvest

Shrivelled grapes

We couldn't harvest yesterday because Alex had to show Ross House with little notice. We had a lot of commitments this week, and I hadn't looked at the grapes in two days. I thought it would give more of them a chance to reach a brix of 20 as they were hovering around 19 three days ago. 

When we started picking the Rondo this morning, it quickly became apparent that we'd had a crop failure. Without rain for so long, in those two days, most of them turned into raisins.  I was gutted. We only had a few good bunches. Very tasty, but hardly enough for a bottle or two. 

A good bunch

The full harvest of Rondo.

Meanwhile, the Solaris also reached veraison. We picked what was there -- so little for the number of vines -- but our yield was barely half a bucket. Lots of hens and chicks but really tasty and sweet. Most were from the younger vines not the older ones. I just don't understand what went wrong. There was no early frost or major storms. 

You can see the damage to the foliage caused by the drought. The only good news is that the birds didn't eat all of the grapes. Our strategies must have worked:

• Kites flying overhead
• Heron on the ground
• CDs fluttering around the vines
• No bird food in the garden for the last two months
• Cats prowling far and wide

Curiously, some of the vines are flowering again. They are really confused by this late warmth and sunshine. 

Flowering Solaris

Flower buds on Rondo

Vines suffering from drought

The Pinot Noir is encouraging 

Veraison is beginning

Chardonnay still hard as a rock and sour

Veraison not evident

Hens and chicks

No transparency

Visiting honey bees

The vineyard vista is still magnificent

Farming during anthropogenic climate weirdness is going to be a challenge.