Not quite

We were planning to harvest today. There are birds stealing grapes daily. We had to wait until the afternoon as we had heavy rain in the morning and other responsibilities.

But Alex did something to his back and he's in agony. So I went up to start picking on my own, but I realised they are not ready yet. Perhaps tomorrow, if the birds don't pre-empt us. 

Alex hung old CDs in the vineyard to keep the birds away. I brought in one of my herons to stand guard. The bags we tied on last year worked well but were such a pain to put on and take off.  We'll take our chances for one more day. 

There are many red Rondo to pick and far fewer white Solaris. But the Solaris are very tasty. Next year, we should have more. 

Here are a few inventive ways of protecting grapes from birds. 

Almost there

 

Veraison is progressing very quickly now. We may be harvesting in the next few days. The kite is flying nicely and seems to be doing its job. Let's hope that between the cats, the donkeys and the kite, the birds will be kept away. 

It finally rained

The vineyard was quite dry

We have had a long dry spell and yesterday it finally rained. And it rained quite a lot in Mayo. You can hear the trees breathing a sigh of relief. They had already started dropped their leaves. With the ash dieback disease, forestry is suffering in Ireland. We don't need more pressure on the canopy.

We have been watering the gardens but not the vineyard and not the rewilding area. Our rain catchment and pond were getting very low and now have been topped up. The grapes had not increased in size since the last time I posted but now I expect them to plump up. We've got another dry spell coming over the next few days, so I am hoping they won't get too diluted. The Azores high has been parked solidly over Ireland for weeks. 

During the rainy weather, we went to work on the polytunnel again. We still have not found a suitable eating grape for the tunnel. We did, however, manage to install the third and last raised bed. Still need to fill it with compost, but I've got a layer of seaweed at the bottom. Alex is planning a strawberry bed as well. It's all coming together. 

The vines are growing

Looking neater

Suddenly, everything started growing exponentially. The mild temperatures, gentle rain, and light winds produced ideal conditions. The vines shot up and out making it difficult for Alex to mow. When I started tying the vines up to the supports, I found two issues: 

1. Some of the heavier vines, mostly 4-year-old Solaris, had broken the top tape that was holding them to the supports and were drooping in half. Fortunately, none had broken. 
2. The electrical tape we were using had killed the primary shoots on the newer vines (Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Albarino) from the area of the tape down to the stock. 

Dead primaries killed by tape

I knew the Albarino were not doing as well as the others and was disappointed, but I had not noticed that the shoots we had taped to the supports had actually died. The remaining vines were stressed and therefore stunted. Three Albarinos and three Chardonnays were completely dead. 

I next cut up strips of nylon stockings to tie the vines with. That's a trick I learned from the woman I bought our first house from. It was a great way to reuse something that had reached its life limit. They are soft and stretchy. 

As I tied up the vines with the new strips of stockings, I removed the tape and excised the dead wood. I am very sad that we were actually killing the vines without realising it. I hope they can recover. We need to get those overhead trellises built. 

Surprise! Tiny Pinot noir grapes on one vine. 

Solaris grapes getting plumper

The audience

Friends getting a tour

Rain and more rain

Clew Bay

After weeks of heat and drought, we now are getting rain and plenty of it. Yesterday, it poured buckets of rain all day. In fact, the Newport Furnace station, our closest station, reported the highest rainfall total in the country at 26.2 mm. The grapes should start getting plumper now. Hopefully, they won't get too much water. But it's not something we can control. 

Newport Furnace	26.2	18.9	14.0		9.5 (18)		17.9	743	13.7

Station Rain MaxT MinT Sun Wind Gust Soil Global Gmin mm oCoChrKts (Km/h)Kts (Km/h)oCJ/cm^2oC

Our rainfall total for August as of the 6th has already surpassed our total for all of July and all of April and is approaching our monthly total for June. And there haven't been any tropical storms coming our way over that period either. What a strange year! 

Meanwhile, the entire west coast of North America is on fire from BC to CA and experiencing severe drought and huge water restrictions. Greece and Turkey are experiencing  huge wildfires as is Siberia. Russia mobilised the army to combat the fires. South Africa has a serious drought and are predicting day zero soon when the water in Nelson Mandela Bay provinces will dry up. I will write a post on what's happening with the vineyards specifically relative to drought and fires soon. 

The Met Eireann stats for Newport are below for reference. 

MONTHLY VALUES FOR NEWPORT UP TO 06-AUG-2021

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	225.6	147.6	141.1	45.6	113.5	64.1	59.7	60.3					857.5
2020	139.5	342.8	178.2	25.5	54.7	164.5	187.9	137.9	153.4	228.0	206.6	232.7	2051.7
2019	146.8	115.0	228.5	100.7	112.5	76.6	82.7	228.9	175.5	160.7	148.1	220.6	1796.6
2018	274.6	155.6	86.2	94.3	70.4	65.9	58.6	179.1	148.3	140.9	172.6	201.0	1647.5
LTA	166.7	126.5	141.2	96.8	94.7	89.7	100.9	132.5	131.5	176.0	170.4	180.2	1607.1

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	5.0	6.7	7.9	9.0	10.4	13.3	17.5	16.4					10.2
2020	7.2	6.0	6.6	11.0	12.8	13.8	14.4	16.0	13.8	10.5	9.1	6.1	10.6
2019	6.9	8.4	7.9	10.2	11.7	13.1	16.3	15.5	13.7	10.3	7.1	7.1	10.7
2018	5.9	4.6	5.5	9.1	13.1	16.1	16.1	15.0	12.4	10.9	8.3	8.1	10.5
LTA	6.1	6.1	7.3	9.0	11.5	13.8	15.4	15.4	13.5	10.8	8.3	6.5	10.3

Mean 10cm soil temperature for NEWPORT at 0900 UTC

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	3.6	5.0	6.8	8.2	10.9	14.3	17.9	n/a					9.6
2020	5.7	4.7	5.4	9.7	13.0	14.8	14.9	16.3	13.7	9.5	8.0	5.1	10.1
2019	6.1	6.1	6.8	8.9	12.2	13.8	16.7	15.7	13.5	9.4	6.2	5.6	10.1
2018	4.4	2.9	4.0	8.2	13.1	17.4	18.4	15.1	12.1	9.6	6.6	6.6	9.9
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Global Solar Radiation in Joules/cm2 for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	6620	13347	20370	45694	55690	45488	49455	8564					245228
2020	6263	10808	24545	46192	58476	43537	40215	40555	25558	18487	6319	5209	326164
2019	5378	10595	21306	37648	49884	49607	45395	37116	26460	17406	8167	4766	313728
2018	5976	13390	25269	34709	58446	59849	51448	34923	22619	17123	7842	4068	335662
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Potential Evapotranspiration (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	7.6	22.9	30.7	62.9	76.3	70.7	87.8	14.2					373.1
2020	17.6	21.9	35.0	70.2	91.6	72.9	66.2	66.4	42.7	28.1	13.6	10.4	536.6
2019	13.4	21.5	35.4	60.4	79.0	78.2	79.5	62.9	42.8	29.2	14.8	14.3	531.4
2018	16.3	21.8	35.7	52.0	88.2	102.4	87.2	58.7	37.9	30.2	18.0	11.5	559.9
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Evaporation (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	10.9	32.1	45.4	89.9	111.2	102.0	117.2	19.5					528.2
2020	22.4	31.9	51.8	98.9	130.8	104.8	94.3	92.7	59.1	38.8	18.1	13.6	757.2
2019	17.7	29.5	52.0	87.3	111.6	112.8	109.6	88.8	59.9	39.6	18.9	17.9	745.6
2018	21.9	30.2	51.7	76.4	127.4	140.4	120.7	82.2	53.1	40.6	22.8	14.9	782.3
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

DEGREE DAYS BELOW 15.5 DEGREE CELSIUS FOR NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
2021	325	247	236	200	167	79	20	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2020	257	276	275	143	111	73	55	31	71	156	193	291	1935
2019	266	200	235	165	130	89	27	36	67	164	251	262	1892
2018	298	306	309	194	104	50	31	44	100	147	215	230	2027

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Notes on the Data

Evaporation and PE data are calculated using Penman/Monteith formulae.
The ‘LTA’ (referred to within a table) is average for the climatological long-term-average (LTA) reference period 1981-2010.
Data updated daily at Mid-day.