Posts Tagged planting

This week, I started to get into a serious summer schedule at the farm.  Now that school is out for summer, Dave welcomes me coming to work earlier (since he doesn’t have to take his son to school in the morning) and staying as long as need be to get the work done.  That meant that on Monday I put in a seven-hour day, and Tuesday stretched to eight hours.

If you wonder how I held up, I’m pleased to say that despite minor injuries and regular aches, I did very well.  But then, we had an exciting week.

Room for more tomatoes, but not for ours

We still had tomatoes left after I planted the last patch last week, and we still had the lower third of one bed open for tomatoes.  But these wouldn’t be ours.  Instead, Dave had agreed to be part of a tomato-grafting trial this season, research being done at the OARDC here in town, and he left this section open for the Cherokee Purple tomato seedlings that the researcher would bring.

Grafted and ungrafted Cherokee Purple seedlings from the research station

On Tuesday, Michelle showed up with a flat of 40 Cherokee Purples — 10 ungrafted, with the rest grafted onto three different strains of hardy rootstock.  The goal of the research is to find out whether this grafting process for tomatoes provides enough disease resistance and general hardiness to make the time-consuming grafting worthwhile.

Can you imagine grafting something this small?

See, on fruit trees and other perennials, grafting makes sense because you’re investing a comparatively small amount of time on plants that will be around for decades.  But tomatoes, an annual crop, with such small stems and thus more delicate grafts?  Well, apparently the technique has met with success in Japan, Michelle notes, but these are early days for the method here in the States.

Note the graft (the "V") well above the soil and even the mulch

Michelle gladly answered our questions and shared ideas as well as her own questions about the farm — she’s enthusiastic about the farms she’s visiting for this project.  We talked while Dave’s daughter and I planted the seedlings (Michelle laid out the seedlings the way she wanted them to be arranged), being careful not to sink the plants so deeply as to cover the grafts.

One question I had was whether the seeds saved from the fruit of these plants would then carry the characteristics of both the rootstock and the Cherokee Purple strain.  (I don’t know much about grafting, so this may be a silly question.)  The research, however, is new enough that she wasn’t able to give me an answer — they simply haven’t thought yet to consider that aspect.  The seeds will produce Cherokee Purples again next year, but whether or not they will produce plants with increased hardiness remains to be seen.

Cherokee Purple trial patch, marked for different grafted rootstock varieties

In the meantime, we will watch this patch and see how things go.  (Since it’s the lower part of the bed, I suspect we’ll see some problems with excess water, but I hope it won’t be too bad.)  And when it comes time to harvest, we’ll be keeping special records on yields, resistance, and whatever else is notable.

I rounded out my work Tuesday with replacing other tomato seedlings that had succumbed to root rot, clearing out the old kale bed, harvesting garlic scapes for market, helping Dave lay the rest of the drip lines, and planting melons and winter squash.  Since we planned to spend time Wednesday preparing for a farmers’ market, we wanted to push through the field work while we could this week.

Wednesday morning greeted us with low skies and a steady rainfall that had me soaked through shortly after we started harvesting produce for Dave’s Wednesday market.  But the unofficial Post Office motto of “neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night” applies to farmers as well, so we persevered and harvested kohlrabi, turnips, beets, radishes, kale, mustard greens, and snow peas for market.

Everything for sale is weighed and packaged with care

“There’s an art to preparing for market,” Dave asserted as we started the day’s work.  From making clean cuts to harvest the produce to cleaning off unsightly leaves in the field, from washing produce thoroughly and cleaning off more problem spots to bundling produce together for sale, he demonstrated his techniques and explained his desire for the best-looking produce display.

Nope, not quite pretty enough for market

For example, turnips that looked perfectly good when pulled from the ground had to be reevaluated once cleaned — and these, sad to say, did not make the cut.  (They did, however, make it into a bin of seconds for me to take home.)

Bundles of turnips, ready for market

By noon, we had prepped all the produce he intended to take to market, laying bundles of root vegetables carefully in plastic bins and tucking leafy greens into plastic bags (stems all down, bag bottoms snipped to allow drainage).  And with that, my day’s work was done.

As we head further into farmers’ market season, I expect my weeks will follow more of this pattern — long days Monday and Tuesday, morning harvest Wednesday, and possibly another afternoon of harvesting later in the week.  So it’s good to get some of the basics of that process down now.  And I look forward to learning more about the art of farming.

The greens at the new garden are about ready for picking

These days, we’re pushing to get crops planted.  Now that the cooler weather seems to be passing, we dodge the rainy days and get as many seedlings transplanted into the ground as possible.

That holds true for the home gardens as well as the farm.  Once we pass that “frost-free” date of May 15, a mad rush ensues as we release seedlings from their plastic prisons and give them room and water and sunshine and fresh air so they can stretch up as well as sink into the ground.

Tomato seedlings from my seeds and from Jen's father-in-law

I spent a couple of hours at the new garden this weekend in order to get caught up on planting.  A couple flats of seedlings had been lingering on my doorstep, getting hardened off, and it was definitely time to move them into the plot assigned to them.  The tomatoes took up one entire plot, between the Rutgers and Amish Paste seedlings I had brought and the variety of heirloom seedlings contributed by Jen’s father-in-law. (Jen also tucked the small basil starts in between the bigger tomatoes.)

Covering the new onion starts with grass mulch

I planted the small onions — Red Cipollini and Clear Dawn — that I had started earlier this year.  Tucked in between rows of broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbage, they settled in under a light blanket of grass mulch.  Here’s hoping they prosper.

Hoe, hoe, hoe: mounding the dirt around the potato plants

While Jen weeded other areas of the garden, I hilled the potatoes, just as Dave had shown me at the farm.  Knowing that those have grown so quickly gives me a sense of hope for this plot this year — these six rows should provide a good crop.

Extending the garden to make room for my staples

I also extended the garden plan into the back section, which was not as well tilled.  This area, designated for my grain and bean and seed crops, has already seen an invasion of weeds as well as alternated between mud and caked soil.  I’m not as thoroughly optmistic about this section, but it won’t stop me from trying.  At the opposite end from the oats I planted a couple of dry bean varieties (Jacob’s cattle and Soldier), a winter squash, millet, and flax — still to come are flint corn, more dry beans, sorghum, and buckwheat.

Radishes, turnips, and more are coming along nicely

In the meantime, older crops continue to grow and start to flourish.  The greens, shown at top, are ruffling out their little leaves more each week, and the root crops may need thinning fairly soon.

Everything needs to be mulched, of course, which we will work on as we are able — depending on weather and how much grass gets scooped up.  Jen has already developed a morning habit of heading out to visit the garden and do a little work for a while, though I still need to work in more regular visits.

Planting will continue, especially over the next couple of weeks.  We have loads of seedlings still to plant at the farm, and given my big box of seeds at home, I’m sure I can keep going in the gardens.  And now that the gardens are greening up with fresh produce coming in, the joy of homegrown food really begins.

Springtime = mudtime

Springtime, personified, is a fickle lass. One day, she’ll appear in the guise of warm sunshine, bedecked with lush greenery and fragrant flowers.  The next, she’ll swirl in on stormy grey clouds, lashing her chilly cloak around her and casting cascades of rain down on the fields.

The latter vision of Spring visited us last week and lingered for a couple of days.  Though on Monday I was able to plant more potatoes and enjoy some sunshine (if also cool breezes), by Tuesday I was sequestered in the greenhouse to water, weed, and sow more flats of seedlings — and listening to the wind ruffle the plastic shell of the structure and the rain pelt against it from all sides.

By Wednesday, Dave called me to say I needn’t bother heading to the farm for work since it was far too muddy to plant onions or anything else.

This is what happens come spring.  No matter what we think we need to do, no matter what the calendar dictates we should do in the fields, the weather has the final say.  Sometimes we can push the boundaries a little, but after storms and abundant rainfall, there’s no point in mucking through the fields only to compact the soil and to plant seedlings that are liable to have decreased yield due to the cool and soggy conditions.

And so on Wednesday, I stayed home, poured myself an extra cup of coffee, and devoted the day to extra baking — something I welcomed as I was facing a longer list of market baking in preparation for the Grand Opening at Local Roots.

Eventually, the warmth and sunshine returned by week’s end, and since I’ve been neglecting my own vegetable patches lately, I decided to spend some time there, planting out the next round of seedlings and seeds.

On Friday afternoon, I headed out to Jen’s place for the next round of planting.  We agreed that by waiting until then, the sun would give the soil a chance to dry out a little bit, though it would still be comparatively easy for weeding.  I gathered up three flats of seedlings — mainly brassicas and herbs, with a few flowers and a four-pack of celery thrown in — and joined her in the damp vegetable patch to work for a couple of hours.

Small, but here's hoping these cabbages will turn out mighty

As we worked through one bed in particular, I discovered that though the soil was still moist and easy to clump together, Jen’s weeding had loosened it enough for me to transplant seedlings easily.  I laid in rows of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage before filling the rest of the bed with herbs such as cumin, chamomile, hyssop, and garlic chives as well as echinacea and shasta daisies.

The oats are growing, despite the mud

While there, I inspected the previously planted plots and was pleased to find that the oats I had sown (not wild, of course) had grown to approximately 4″ in height, despite the more muddy conditions in their corner of the garden.  Though that texture of soil is hardly ideal, my books on grain-growing indicate that oats tend to need more moisture than other grains, and clay soil, while not the best, is not a significant detriment to their growth.

The potatoes have started to erupt from the soil surface, though they’re not yet ready for hilling, and most of the roots and greens crops have germinated as well.  The rain may have made it difficult to plant anything earlier this week, but it certainly benefited what was already in place.

If anything, the combination of farming and weather is teaching me a great deal about patience and acceptance this year.  There’s not a thing I can do about the weather, which means that some days there’s not a thing I can do about the farming.  And as much as I’ve wanted to have plenty of control over my actions and my life in the past, I’m learning that not being in control can be rather freeing.  Can’t work today due to mud?  Well, OK, I won’t earn money today but maybe I can do something else.  Just… move on.

As of today, rain is in the forecast for the next three days — the three days I’m scheduled to work at the farm this week.  What that will mean for my work this week, I don’t yet know.  But for today at least, the sun is still shining, so I’m planning to work in another of my gardens this afternoon and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

Just one of many sacks of potatoes to be planted this year

Life on the farm has started to settle into a rhythm of late.  When I rumble down the gravel drive and park my now-dusty red pickup, I sign in and generally head to the greenhouse to water the flats of seedlings.  If it hasn’t rained recently, I’ll follow that up with watering fields #3 and #5, where the bulk of the early vegetables are planted.

After that, I’m likely to follow Dave and the tractor hauling bags of potatoes out to the field, girding my loins — or, rather, my knees — for extended sessions of planting.

More than a fingerling -- it's a whole handful of potato!

Dave has planted many,  many pounds of potato seed each year, with ever-increasing yields on the many varieties he takes to market.  He is rightfully proud of his success in growing spuds, and he likes to remind me — with a smile that I find myself returning — that these potatoes pay my wages.

As far as I’m concerned, the bruised shins, aching knees and back, and increasing layers of sunburn are a small price to pay for doing work that on the surface is repetitive and dull — but that actually offers me an extended lesson on reading the soil, the weather, the water situation, and much more.  Because when I’m on my hands and knees, clawing holes in the dirt with my gloved hand, I’m noticing the varying degrees of tilth in the plots, seeing what weeds persistently pop up, chasing earthworms back into the cooler depths, and even occasionally looking up and seeing the beauty of the day.

Sure, when I stand up, my knees are wobbly and my head a little woozy, but though my back aches at the end of the day, I do feel as though I’ve completed a satisfying round of very important and invigorating work.  (I can even say this knowing that I’ll be doing more this week — we’re only about 2/3 through the 1200+ lbs of potato seed.)

New garden, layered with compost and marked out for specific crop beds

So perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that after a week of planting potatoes, I would spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon off helping my friend Jen get our garden started — with more potatoes.

My friend Keith and I had dropped off a truckload of compost for Jen to spread across the tilled plot on the Friday before, and she marked out the beds as we had plotted them on paper.  I showed up on a windy, grey afternoon, with seeds in hand, ready to help her get started on this year’s experiment.

Marking the next row for planting

I had found Dave’s row-marking technique — two metal stakes linked with a hefty length of rope — to be so effective that I made my own row-marker to use on this garden.  And as Jen pulled weeds, I marked rows and planted potatoes.

New potato bed, planted

It didn’t take long to plant three rows of Purple Viking potatoes and three rows of Red Gold — nearly the rest of what I had bought for the year.  And after that, we moved on to plant roots (carrots, radishes, turnips, salsify, rutabaga) and greens (lettuce, pac choi, broccoli raab), as well as a patch of hull-less oats for me.

The new garden, all laid out (with the back plot reseeded for grass this year)

After about two and a half hours of work, we had made a good start on this year’s garden — plus had a good visit while we worked (one of the joys of gardening with others) and sat down for an icy cold drink afterward.

There’s more work to do — there always is — both in this new garden and at the farm, including planting more potatoes.  But it’s good to celebrate these small details along the way.

A common sight this time of year

If you were to fly over this part of northern Ohio at this time of year, you’d swoop down over broad patches of green and brown: greening woods and pastures interspersed with newly plowed fields.  It’s time for farmers to plow under the remains of last year’s crops — big plots of corn and soy residue, mostly — and to till the ground into a finer texture for this year’s planting.

Every morning when I drive out to the farm, I inevitably see at least one giant machine working its way slowly through a distant field, churning up dust.  And gradually, the landscape I pass on my journey is leveling out, ready for a new year’s growth to begin again.

While the no-till method has gained a great deal of attention in recent years, I confess I haven’t seen a whole lot of it applied in the areas I most frequent.  There are, of course, benefits to avoiding tilling — chiefly, the reduced loss of topsoil that occurs when dry earth is churned up.

However, the  no-till method often also involves the abundant use of herbicides, something that is not welcome in the organic farming methods I’m trying to learn.  Yes, there are organic versions of no-till; sorry, I am not an expert on them.  I myself have tried not to work the land too heavily each year in my own gardens, knowing that it’s best not to disturb that rich top layer too much, but tilling is still often the first step to preparing a new plot and creating better soil tilth.

No, I don’t really know a whole lot, which is another reason why I am trying to listen and to ask questions and to observe this year.

The walk-behind tiller

In an effort to boost the soil’s fertility, Dave uses cover cropping — using rye grass — to increase nitrogen levels, prevent erosion on sloping fields, suppress weeds, and improve the soil’s tilth.  And though rye grass can be crimped and left to wither while another crop is planted through it, I suspect that that method works better for grains than it does for specialty crops like vegetables.  So come spring, Dave heads out to till the fields that have rye grass, using either the walk-behind tiller for small areas or the tiller attached to the tractor for larger plots.

Over the past week or two, he has had to till a couple of areas twice, just to work the rye grass under and to break up some of the remaining soil clumps, before we could move in and plant potatoes.  But the results have been worth it, as the tilling has left behind soil that is easily worked by hand.  (Since we’re doing the planting all by hand, often on hands and knees, that is a definite plus.)

New garden after first tilling

So in discussing garden plans with my friend Jen, we agreed that a thorough tilling of the plot we wanted to use would be a good first step.  The area hadn’t seen a cover crop, of course, but tilling did help to break up the sod and loosen the soil for us.  I requested a second tilling for the area we have earmarked for potatoes, so soon I think we’ll start planting.  (I’ll also be bringing in a truck load of compost to help give us a better start, since we don’t have the advantage of the years of increasing soil fertility and tilth that Dave has on his farm.)

Taking time to enjoy the world

After all that hard work of tilling — none of which I actually did — it seemed appropriate to spend one day’s lunch break at the farm lolling in the grass and looking up at the beautiful blue sky, appreciating the wonders around me and being thankful that I finally took this step toward farming.  My farming hero, Gene Logsdon, has expressed in his writing many times the sentiment that if you don’t have time to lounge in a hammock on your farm and appreciate what all is around you, you’re doing it wrong.  Today, I did it right.

And I’ll be hard at work again soon enough.

Is it lawn or is it a field crop?

This might look like a piece of lawn to you, grass dotted with weeds (or wild edibles, depending on your point of view).  It’s not.  Well, it is, but on Dave’s farm, it’s more than that: it’s a crop.

See, Dave found inspiration some years ago in the classic book The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, in which the author farmed with as little outside input into the farming cycle as possible.  Fukuoka had straw available on his farm, and using it for mulch kept it from becoming “waste” as well as held moisture on the fields and reduced the impact of weeds.

Dave doesn’t grow the big grain crops that would yield a fine harvest of straw, but he does have a few acres of grassy hills and avenues.  So, when he mows, he gathers up the cut grass and piles it up next to his plots and fields in order to mulch the growing vegetables.

Field #3, fully planted and mulched

Now that I’m working for him, of course, that means that I am the one who gets to spread a lot of mulch.  And so I do.

After transplanting seedlings from the greenhouse to field #3 last week, he mowed around the field and in between rows, scattering the cut grass over the kohlrabi, pac choi, radish, beet, and spinach seedlings.

Neat rows of pac choi, mulched

Everywhere I plant and water new seedlings, I follow up with a layer of fine grass clippings, tucked around the individual plants and hosed down to keep the grass from drying out and blowing away.

Garlic gets a new layer of fresh grass clippings

Even older crops — such as this hardneck garlic planted in the fall, long before I came to the farm — are getting an extra thick layer of mulch as springtime weeds start to poke through the old layer.

Of course, I’ve known that mulch is a wonderful thing to use in the garden to conserve water and to protect the plants, but I had never been very consistent about applying it on my own plots.  Not this year.

Strawberry "babies" tucked in for protection while they grow

After planting garlic last fall, I mulched the area thoroughly.  But this year, especially in garden #1, where we had a leftover bale of straw to use, I’ve mulched after every planting.  I picked up strawberry starts from a friend on Saturday and planted them here yesterday, tucking straw around every plant.  It’s not as neat and complete as the grass mulch, but until we start getting a pile of grass clippings for this garden, it will have to do.

And that’s just the point: you use what you’ve got.  Fukuoka had straw.  Dave has grass.  Right now I’ve got straw and will hope to use grass later, but I could also use the newspapers that have piled up at home or matted leaves from last fall.  All of them help.

It’s definitely better than nothing.

Kohlrabi and other seedlings, rarin' to go

Now that April is here, everything is picking up speed for the growing season.  The seedlings in the greenhouse are growing lush in some cases and slightly more delicately in others, and it’s time to start planting, whether by seed or by seedling.

That means, it’s time for some serious physical labor.

Once the soil started to dry out two weeks ago — with sunshine and warmer weather aiding in the process — I started some heavy duty (for me) work at the farm.  It started with cleanup: Dave wanted me to clear out the seedbeds in field #3 to prepare for tilling and the first seedlings, and I cleaned out all four beds of leftover kohlrabi, leeks, beets, and other rotting goodies.  Before that day ended, we cleaned out a couple rows of stubborn kale plants in field #2 — truly a back-aching effort.

Feeling the pinch of the sciatic nerve and some serious aches and pains after that day’s work, I headed home for stretches, relaxation, and either a solid dose of ibuprofen or a drink.  The next day, I had a bit of a respite as we pruned grapevines, but I was pleased to note that even before we started work, my back felt a good deal better than the day before.

Future garden space in the new garden #3

Once the weekend arrived, though, the physical labor piled back on again.  I had agreed to work with my friend Jen to create a large garden at her place this year — partly to get her started gardening and partly to have a large place for my own crops.  She had plenty of room and a couple of weedy patches that had evidently served as garden space before, but we needed to clear out the brush and the weed trees first.

Not me, but the same kind of back-breaking tree-uprooting that I did

At first, it wasn’t much out of the ordinary.  Bending over to scrape up brush or to pull dried weeds, carrying bundles of dead organic matter to a brush piled, I felt slight pulls in my back, but nothing too horrendous.  Then we turned our attention to those accursed weed trees.  Jen’s in-laws tackled the larger ones with tow chain and then tractor, but we also labored to dig up and yank out the smaller ones.  That — and a tumble or two onto my rear end when the release came unexpectedly — definitely left me sore.

So what did I do?  I headed to garden #2 and dug trenches to plant potatoes, then sowed seeds for beets, peas, lettuce, radishes, and pac choi.  Yes, after that, I headed home, did my stretches, nursed my back a little — and then went out dancing that night.

The next day, I took grapevines to the Farm and bent over for two hours planting, backfilling, watering, and mulching them.  At least by this point, my back muscles were becoming more accustomed to the work, and the pauses and stretches that I included in the work helped me to avoid having my muscles bunch up too much.

First two rows of kohlrabi seedlings planted at the farm, April 5

“No rest for the wicked,” they say, and I must be a terrible person because I went from hard work all weekend to three days of planting seedlings back at Dave’s farm.  This allowed me to kneel or sit while I planted, but even so, I ached at the end of each day (though a little less every day).  By the end of my three-day work week, I had planted seedlings from about a dozen flats of kohlrabi, two flats of turnips, four flats of radishes, and perhaps half a dozen of pac choi, filling field #5 and the better part of field #3.

Each day it feels like I’m getting a little stronger — or at least balancing the physical labor with better stretches or more sensible breathers.  Each evening I have less significant back pain (or any other pain: neck, shoulder, arm, hand, wrist, thigh, calf, foot, you get the picture) and rely less on either pain relievers or a relaxing drink.  I’m nowhere near ripped and perfectly toned — but on the other hand, I’m not the cream puff I thought I was.  It’s satisfying to know that if I can pace myself and adapt my movements to what works best for me, I can work hard and get quite a bit done without feeling completely wiped out or racked up in pain at the end of it all.

It’s early in the season yet, and there’s plenty more physical work to be done.  I’ll be juggling increased hours at the farm, a day and a half of baking and delivery, work in three gardens, and heaven only knows what else, so I don’t expect to put my feet up and relax my way through summer.  But so far, I’m meeting the challenge and finding a way to adapt to a more physical way of life.

That may turn out to be my proudest achievement this entire year.

The original family grapevines, pruned for the season

Last week, my apprenticeship took me out of the greenhouse in gorgeously sunny spring weather as Dave showed me how to prune grapevines.

His vines have a history: two of the three varieties came from his German cousin, who tended and nurtured them for decades.  A number of years ago, the cousin gave Dave many cuttings, which Dave then planted in two rows south of the greenhouse on his farm.  The varieties are red and white, names unknown, sweet grapes that sound like they are good for eating as well as for making juice or jelly.

The third variety, a White Catawba, had a more mundane origin and was planted on the other side of the chicken pen.  But while these vines may not have the sentimental appeal of the family grapes, they have more familiarity for me since Catawba is one of the main grape varieties that has been grown in northern Ohio for many years.  A well-known representative of the labrusca or “fox” grapes, something I’ve written about before, the Catawba grape has a flavor that tastes like “home” to me.

I watched carefully as Dave selected offshoots from the main vines to prune, either knowing that the branch was dead and not worth keeping or choosing a length with enough buds to be a viable cutting for starting new vines.  He worked his way around each main vine with methodical care, instructing me where to tie some vines to the wires to train them for the next year.

Finally, by the time we reached the last row of grapes, he was ready for a break — and I was ready to take over the pruning.  He handed me the pruners and walked away.  I focused on the vines, trying to visualize their growth as he did, and pruned away the dead pieces and added more cuttings to the bucket.  When he returned, he looked it over — and declared it good.

I am sure I will have many noteworthy accomplishments in my apprenticeship this year, but this easily tops anything to date.  I pruned grapevines!

Cuttings ready to plant

The bucket of cuttings, then, were handed to me.  Since Dave wasn’t ready to plant more on his farm, he offered them to me, if I had a place to start my own grapevines.  And I did.

My dear friend Keith comes from a “farm” a couple counties away, and though the land there hasn’t really been worked as a farm as we know it, his brother and sister-in-law (the owners now, though not in residence) are interested in adding gardens and fruit crops to the land.  So I suggested to him that we plant the grapevines there, and after consulting with his sister-in-law, he showed me the slope where he had laid out the rows.

Four of us worked on the project: Keith wielded Dave’s planting tool, a long sharpened metal pole with a handle, used to poke and widen a deep hole in the ground; Peg and her friend Mary followed and stuck the cuttings into the holes, with two buds below the surface; and I came along last and backfilled the holes with sand.

Three rows of new grapevines

We ended up with three sixty-foot rows, one per variety, and after I watered each of the cuttings, we covered the rows with a thick layer of straw for mulch.  Since this slope gets full sun and is in the path of the mower, we knew we’d need to protect the vines while they settle in.  Sometime yet this spring or early summer, we’ll go through and set posts and run wires for the trellising needed for the grapevines to grow.

I’m sure I’ll learn more about viticulture from Dave as the season progresses.  I expect we’ll lose some of the cuttings, based on what he has told me, but I hope we’ll end up with a good healthy set of vines to provide us with tasty grapes for years to come.