March 21 & 22 2015

Hooray!

Signs of Spring have finally arrived to the N GA mountains. Saturday was a beautiful day to be out working. The sun was shining bright with temps in the mid 60’s. I was forced to change the locations of the rows after discovering areas of hard pan. Hard pan is soil compacted to a very rock-like hardness that water will not penetrate and roots cannot breach. My hope is that since the vines are 6 ft apart, careful planning will allow the vines to straddle the narrow ribbons of hard pan. Grape roots go very deep, but not so wide. Any hard pan I encounter when planting will be aggressively attacked to create areas for roots.

Each row was double tilled and amended with lots of lime, some potash (ashes from the wood stove), some magnesium (epsom salts) and a little bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer. The rows were terraced just a bit and the amended soil tilled deep enough that the young roots won’t get burned the first year. That good stuff will be there for them next year when they really start to take off.

I did get 2 of the 3 rows complete and ready for planting the vines. Sunday was cloudy and rainy most of the day which resulted in a muddy mess, and good pictures were difficult. There’s a couple pics below. I was able to make a Home Depot run for 2 more 5-6 inch end posts for my rows. 

Next week I will complete the 3rd row, plant the in-between crop of white clover and dig and set a couple end posts if time allows.