Watering in the replants

My Honey asked me, if I was going to take pictures, “why” was I taking pictures of “these” plants. The other side of the vineyard looks beautiful – this side is the “weak” side. But – – I wanted to take pictures where they were currently working. So here goes.

Today in the vineyard … we were watering up the replants of Tempranillo. By replants I mean that last spring we planted five acres of Tempranillo here, but some of them died over the winter. So, we bought 5,000 more plants and are replanting the ones that died. I love that word “we.” Of course all “I” was really doing was taking pictures.

Normally once the plants are up and on their way, we use underground drip tape to water the plants. But for these replants we will water them by flooding the plants in good in the beginning, here is what “they” do:

Here is one of my sons making dams or dikes to keep the water where it needs to stay.

A shovel works well, but they have to watch for breaks in the dikes.

I asked my son if that is what it was supposed to be doing, and he answered, “Not exactly.” He quickly patched up the dike.

The little plant tied to the bamboo pole is a Tempranillo wine grape plant that was planted this spring. The little brown knob beside it is the dead one planted last spring. Of course it wasn’t dead when we planted it. It just had a really hard winter.

This plant is a second leaf plant. Not really as far along as My Honey would like it, but at least it isn’t dead.

In the rows towards the back of this picture, you can see some third leaf Tempranillo plants. They look nicely loaded with fruit, but you can’t really see that from here.

Hey, you guys, come fix this one again. — I’m really a great help here aren’t I, pointing out where they need to work.

Here we have some of the other employees stringing out more wire for the trellises.

If you look down that row, you can see that they still have a long way to go, and they still have more rows after those. I think … they will be late for lunch, … and have plenty of work after lunch. And yes, my daughter is having a good time jumping the water filled trenches.

More work

The Dirt Farmer is supposed to be printing numbers or names or something on these poles, so somehow I can keep all the different grapes straight. I asked him why he didn’t consult me on the color options for the metal end poles. He told me they were yellow to encourage the tractor drivers (usually our sons) to see them and not run over them. To which I responded, “Good color choice!”