Deer Zone
It's helpful to know how high a deer can feed. Above that point you can let your vines grow free of cages. I'm on the tall side for a human, so "the deer zone" ends near the top of my shirt pocket. Of course
Biodiversity Challenge #1
Everyone thinks deer are harmless, benign, beautiful, elegant forest creatures until they start a garden at the forest's edge. That's when it becomes clear that deer are the Great White Sharks of the plant world. Just like you would never keep baby seals in open water
New Music Monday #1
Wait, this is supposed to be a newsletter about wine growing, right? Yes, but popular demand has spoken and there are no extra fees for posting more often, sooo.... May I recommend to you: Aldous Harding Her music is interesting, ethereal, quirky, touching, poetic, complex, beautiful, unexpected and more. The
Free Labor
One thing about farmers is they love free labor. It's tricky getting people to work for free but other animals, like praying mantis', spiders and bees provide crop protection services "for the love of the game", if you will. I'm grateful for the
Starting Cuttings
To get to a healthy start that can weather the rigors of the vineyard, I am using a hybrid system, meant to increase the likelihood that a cutting will survive the process, but also without a heavy investment of labor. Give the potted cuttings a dowsing rinse, so the soil
Mushrooms are a Good Thing™️
Forests, with their wealth of falling leaves, needles, branches and entire trees, are the perfect environment for fungal diversity. To the extent possible, as agricultural professionals, we should try to emulate the forest floor. These wood chips are a great example, supporting the 'pheasant's back' mushroom
Wine of the future
The wine industry has layers to it. While bottling season is in the offing, we also have cuttings beginning to take root. It's possible to have these grow outside, in a garden bed, but I think I get more survivors by starting them inside in a bucket of
Bottling Day
It wasn't the only bottling day but we got some 25 Cayuga bottled. The Cayuga chemistry was pretty nearly perfect, 25 was a great year for grape growing in our area. Sangiovese and Marechal Foch were racked and left to settle. I WILL get pictures next time.
Frost
As expected, we got some frosty weather this morning. Time will tell how many buds we'll lose.
Threat of Frost
We have many buds growing already from warm weather we had in March. Tonight they say it could get down to 33°F, dangerously close to a freeze, which could damage the young buds. Fingers crossed, we'll see what happens tomorrow.
Welcome to Epona Wine
This is is the newsletter of the the Epona Wine brand, making exquisite wine from resistant grapes in SW Washington State.