Tying the Vines

My lovely wife, Suzy, among the Cab vines

The vines have burst forth from their grow tubes and almost all varieties are requiring tying off to their stakes. Several have outgrown me by reaching more than six feet tall.

The Zinfandel has from the beginning been the most robust, and now the eight Zin vines are well over six feet tall. The Baco Noir, Viognier, Arandell and St. Vincent are right there with the Zin, and the Cab is close behind. The Merlot, which was planted last, and the three white varieties are not quite there, but clearly coming on with the benefit of more regular rain the past several weeks.

The Zinfandel is taller than I am

and putting pressure on me to get

the trellis built.

I spent an hour in the vineyard tonight tying off nearly every vine. The soaring growth is putting pressure on me to get started building the trellis system, which I had planned to do in September when things cooled off. I may have to reconsider because the little 5/8-in. bamboo stakes are straining under the load.

I had a terrible infestation of Japanese Beetles last week, and was exasperated by their indifference to the Orchard spray. In a fit of pique, I took a container of Sevin dust to the vines last Wednesday, and lightly powdered each with a fine coat of the insecticide. It has been successful so far in thwarting the invasion, which is better than I can say for any of the other products. We got rain over the weekend which washed off the dust, and tonight I found a few of the little buggers back skeletonizing and defoliating.

I'm sold on the dust for getting them off and keeping them off. I suspect I will be back at it tomorrow evening.