Ranunculus starts that are waiting to get planted outside!
There’s still plenty of snow on the vineyard terraces, but the days are getting noticeably warmer! The sun is bright and we’re back on 100% solar power. Seeds are sprouting and grape cuttings are leafing out indoors. It won’t be long before we can start hardening them off outside during the “heat” of the day.
We are excited to see what this summer will bring. With 40 grapevines planted out on the terraces where the ground is much warmer, will they finally look like real grapevines? We hope to plant at least another 40 vines this year of different varieties. While we have a good idea that only a couple of varieties will actually work (read produce edible fruit), we are trialing quite a few varieties to see how they do. Those that don’t produce fruit can still be used for foliage in floral arrangements or installations.
Speaking of floral arrangements, we are taking a deep dive into flower farming this year. After selling a few hundred flowers last summer to a couple of local businesses, we decided to ramp up our offerings for this year. We will be focusing on bupleurum, stock, sunflowers and ranunculus. The ranunculus were started in late February and already look really good! We plan on using raised beds for them, but they need some sort of cover, so something will have to be devised to protect them from winds (had 30+mph winds just this afternoon) and rain. And then there are the voles that will need to be kept away. About 200 ranunculus corms will be going in once the raised beds are thawed.
We were a bit stressed last summer by the limited growing space that was available. Here the ground is too cold during the summer for most plants to grow very well. The solution is to grow in raised beds, but being on a hillside, the beds would just wash away unless they are contained by permanent structures. Years ago, we made 15 raised beds using birch logs that we harvested from the hundreds of trees on the lot. They have actually survived quite a long time (13 or 14 years now), considering that birch is prone to rotting. Admittedly, the most used beds are showing signs of deterioration and we will need to replace the birch logs with more appropriate treated lumber. You would think that 15 raised beds would offer quite a bit of room. We total it at about 115 linear feet by about 3 feet wide. BUT, most of the beds have been filled with peonies for almost 10 years – tubers we bought and didn’t have time or room to plant out. Now that we have a peony plot down toward the bottom of the lot, we plan on moving all of those peonies (a few hundred still) down with the other peonies and free up the bulk of the raised beds late this summer. While that won’t help us this summer, it should free up even more room for ranunculus next summer.
Then we got to thinking about the vineyard terraces…hmmm. If the soil gets warm enough for finicky grapevines, surely other plants will grow, besides the native weeds, willow, alders, and trees. So, we will be interplanting some flowers between the grapevines this summer. That adds about another 350 linear feet (by about 2 feet wide) of growing space. Fencing may have to go up to protect from rabbits, porcupines, and hungry moose. One thing about this plan is that by amending the soil on the terraces for flowers, we will also be making it better for the grapevines. Bring on the compost!
Back to the grapes, though. We took a cutting off our only Baltica vine – after digging down through 3 feet of snow. We weren’t sure just how well it had hardened off last fall. Turns out it did really well and there is the possibility that we can get 5 more Baltica vines growing this year. They will be small, but should be ready to plant out next summer. Our goal is to have several thousand Baltica vines planted over the terraces and make some nice rosé wine from them.
We received 9 new-to-us grape varieties and wild selections earlier this year and they have started to leaf out. In less than four weeks, we expect to see roots growing and then it will be time to get them potted up. The vines on the vineyard terraces should start to show life around May 15th and then it is “go time” for training and installing a few levels of wire for the trellises. We think this summer will be very exciting, so stay tuned!
Speaking of fruit, remember those aronia cuttings that we rooted? Well, they finally went dormant in the house and now they are starting to leaf out. Looks like 100% success! Now to figure out where they will be planted…somewhere warm and sunny.
Someone told me in 2008, “Good luck, they’ve been trying to grow grapes here for 75 years.” Well, make that 90 years! Check back frequently in the coming months to follow along on our farm & vineyard journey.
