So what do you do when you've got 7000 vines left to prune and not enough time to do it? Well, Mum and Dad were looking for a bit of physical exercise after the Christmas celebrations and fed up with the snow in Ashby de la Zouch they didn't take much persuading to get on the plane, swap the snow for the sun, and come and give a very welcome hand at Domaine Jones.
 |
Quick lesson in pruning
|
 |
| and off we go |
And as they started snipping the long vine shoots I got on with clearing up the vineyard. The bareness of the vineyard makes it easy to see and pick up the cuttings and bits of old vine but is was also very easy to see the damage that the torrential rain in October had done to the soil. Large gashes, that made me go ouch, cut across the vineyard exposing vine roots and layers of the black slate soils. We stuck a superficial plaster on it by putting cuttings and stones in the trenches but a major stone wall building operation is needed to permanently sort out the problem.
 |
| Mother Jones making smoke signals |
 |
| Five, six pick up sticks |
 |
| My little vine bonfire |
Posts
