We are one week into February, and we are just getting into the pruning—we are several weeks late. Storm Éowyn had far-reaching consequences. Our roof has been fixed, and the damage is otherwise minimal.
Alex started a couple of days ago by replacing some of the supports and tying up vines at the top of the vineyard where he then began to prune. Àlex was working on the older Solaris today. I did a first pass up the length of the Pinot Noir which has hardly been pruned at all to date.
We are much more confident in our work having just attended a workshop on how to prune grapevines held at Turlough House. Only one ancient vine survived the civil war years when the house was abandoned and left to rot. I'm so glad the Museum of Country Life took it over.
Alex and I had a wonderful experience at the Museum of Country Life in Turlough this weekend. The greenhouse, which originally had about 5 or 6 vines, survived with only one vine intact which had grown wild throughout the greenhouse filling it to the brim. A Sligo-based Scotsman named Andrew was hired to rescue the ancient vine. He's been working at it for years now and started a series of lectures on how to manage a grapevine. We heard about the first session which was booked out but we went there anyway. The subject was pruning -- a very timely discussion for us with pruning of our vineyard delayed by the series of storms. We were allowed to join the session.
It was a small group of people, some of whom had one vine, some had dreams of growing a vine, one had lost her polytunnel in the storm and was trying to save her vine, and, of course, us with 130+ vines and not a clue. We learned a lot and met some very nice people a few of whom we had met before at various events in Westport. We pruned, discussed and learned about each other. We learned that a series of sessions timed throughout the year to coincide with important dates for vines were planned. We intend to attend them all.
The most important thing we learned is that there is no right way and no one way to do these things. Trying a bit of this and a bit of that is just fine. We got to keep the cuttings and can propagate them at will, which was super.
Then we walked through the temporary exhibit in the museum called The Murmur of Bees. Very interesting and informative. The Museum is such a great asset for rural Ireland.
Before the storm, we had managed to prune most of our orchard trees that were due. Today I tackled the old apple that had suffered in a storm in our first year but managed to grow back. I love my little chainsaw. Best tool ever. Now we just have to take all the cuttings away. The land is too wet for even a wheelbarrow. But there's a grand stretch in the day and the forecast for the next week is super. Things are looking up.
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| Easterlies and no clouds and no rain all week. |
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