Winter in the Vineyard...

8 months in...

I've made a film to show you the progression of the Vin-garden!  

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog and have a very Merry Christmas!!

THE GRAPE BIG HARVEST

The grapes get it...

The first film below is from the end of September when I decided to pick the grapes from the vine in my garden.  

What the film doesn't show is the EPIC amount of time it took to harvest the grapes.  I was up the ladder until it got dark.

 

Ladders, secateurs and pink bag - all essential equipment for the job!

Here's a film showing the final harvest.

The picture below shows 2 five gallon fermenting buckets each containing equal amounts of crushed grapes (all of the grape - skins, stalk, seeds).  This is what people refer to as Must.  I've also added 5 campden tablets in to each preventing bacteria growth.  The next stage is to transfer the Must in to the barrels behind the buckets in the photo.  Shout out to Sally Pearl, the dog in the photo!

The next photo shows the Must in the barrels, at this stage I have added 5 lemons and 5 apples to each barrel.  Citric acid from the lemons, and tannin from the apples help with the brewing process.  At this point I also made a syrup of 2 kg of sugar per barrel, last year I used 4 kg of sugar which still tasted great but was a little heavy on the alcohol side!  Finally I added the magic ingredient, yeast nutrients.

Here are the vessels with their lids on with the water bubblers on top.  They allow the gas which occurs during fermentation to escape whilst forming an air tight seal stopping contamination and/or oxidization. 

Within ten minutes of the lids being placed on the bottles, the water level in the bubblers began to climb.  This shows an increase of pressure in the tank, the fermentation has begun.  After two to three weeks, the bubblers were bubbling about every four seconds.  Today is November 4th and the bubbling occurs approximately every three to four minutes.

Once the bubbling stops completely and the pressure turns stable, all of the liquid will have an alcohol content.  This will be approximately 12%.  This will not be the finished product although it is the end of the fermentation process and will probably occur around Christmas time.  At this point I will be removing the must from the wine, I will show you this when it happens.  

I've tried to keep this really simple to show that making wine is not quite the wizardry that people think. People have been doing this for centuries!  The wine I will produce from this specific batch and for the reason of this blog, will be as it is, in it's most pure form.  In past years the outcome has been a very nice home-brew which I've been told would stand its ground against commercially produced wines from around the world. 

That's the end of the 'producing wine' part of my blog until Christmas-ish!  Still working hard on the land, will update you on the vin-garden soon!

The Grape Inspiration, Northern England Grapevine

The Grape Inspiration....

Here is my German vine, as you can see it's a bit of a monster.  This is grown upon the South facing wall of my home.  This vine was purchased about seven or eight years ago as a one year old cutting from the Black Forest, Germany.  After planted it stayed in the ground fairly dormant, it did have leaves on but did not put on much new growth.  In following years it put on metres and metres of growth to the present day where now it is at its full size for this situation.  I do believe it could potentially grow much bigger.

Here you can see I am giving the vine the first prune of this years growing season.  It's hard to see in this photo but the grapes are at the early stages of forming.  I only want to bunches of grapes maximum per arm of growth so this is the point I prune to.  I do this because if you allow the growth to continue, the grapes will not develop and the plant will put its energy in to growth over fruiting.  I will try to explain this in better detail at a later date.

Check out this film that I've put on YouTube to promote the blog, it was taken about six to eight weeks after the above pictures were taken.  I had to give it its second pruning of the growing season because unfortunately, two long limbs have fell from the wall over night.  Hungover this morning from Corbridge Festival I pinned it back up to the wall and pruned it to allow the air to pass through better cutting out any unnecessary growth.  This also achieves a good leaf to grape ratio.  

Lots of grapes!!!!  Last year's harvest was 16 kilograms, the best so far.  This gave me 10 gallons of wine, around 50 bottles of our very own organic, homegrown and homebrewed TOONSHINE! 

Much needed update on England's Most Northern Vineyard To Be...

Here are a few photo's showing how things are progressing.  We've had a JCB in the garden pushing up spoil from the repair of the collapsed wall a few years back.  The caravan in the background is not where I live, it's home to 13 chickens.

 

I've done some hard pruning to the fruit trees along the wall line.  This is to try and train them back to being fan fruit trees.  This is a technique carried out for centuries maximising yield and minimising shade within the garden.  (Also producing a very impressive looking tree.)  This process is harsh at this time of year, it should of been done before fruiting.  It's unlikely to produce much fruit if any this year but this is conservation for the tree and will keep it growing for a longer period of time.  Before, the branches were too heavy and likely to snap.

Below shows a picture of the West side of the garden.  I've started rotovating in rows for the vines to be planted in.  This will not happen until next year, it's not suitable to plant this far in to summer, especially without irrigation.  Rotovating now will help strip the soil of organic matter which is not too favourable for vines.

   

After doing a lot of research on spacing of rows, I found it fluctuates massively and there is no great given rule as such.  There are a lot good reasons for widening or narrowing distances but one of the main ones is to do with size of machinery used within the yard.  As this is not a big scale yard with masses of machinery I have designed it to fit around me, therefore my rows are a freakish 6'8" apart (1 Matt).

Here's me and the chicken's putting up and digging in a rabbit proof fence, Nina helped too.  

JOB DONE!

 I've created that area for an allotment, may as well grow some veg!

Here's a picture of a standing frame of a polytunnel which i'm going to reinstate.  On the floor inside is another metal frame for a much bigger polytunnel which could become another exciting project but that's on the back burner for now!

I've been going up a lot without the camera recently so there's a lot to show in my next blog post.  Sadly this week, a fox got in to the garden and 13 chickens became 3.  I've learnt a few things, fox's eat the heads off chickens and leave the carcass.  You can also smell the distinct scent of fox on a chicken's carcass. 

R.I.P Chickens

Beyond the wall we find a spring!

Here's a film of something I've found just outside the West side of the garden.  

As you can see, the stone circle in the garden looks very much like a well.  I wonder if this combined with the spring source I've found were used to irrigate the garden?

P.s If you think I sound a bit stupid on this film, go out and film yourself doing something, whilst narrating what you're doing, it was so awful I didn't want to do a re-run!  Thinking and talking out loud doesn't come naturally to me.  

This week's progress!

 

This is the progress so far, started cultivating runs in the land.  Leaving the earth turned and exposed for a while will flush out the organic matter within the soil as this is not too good for vines.

This here is Stampy the cow.

The clean up begins...

Progress so far...

...not too interesting i'm afraid!  Grass cutting, removal of fallen fruit trees and large rocks from throughout the garden.  

On the above right picture, behind the far wall there are mature trees.  They will act as a natural wind break from the harsh winds blowing in from the East.

Also met the chickens, they seem a bit shy but happy enough with their new tidy garden. In the picture with the chickens you can see the North wall, beyond the wall there is a wooded area, again good protection from the nasty Northern winds.

 Thanks for reading, will write again soon!

In the beginning...

Beyond The Wall....

Beyond the Wall blog will track the progress of the development of this beautiful walled garden set in the depths of Northumberland.  The garden has a new custodian, Matt Scouler; Gardener to many beautiful places and now a viticulture expert in the making!

Who is Matt??? He started his career as a tree surgeon working across the UK, Ireland and Australia where he 'hacked' trees mainly for the electricity board (not in Oz, they were good professional blokes).  Not satisfied with this he moved away from utility tree work and began a career closer to home working for various private companies. With the aches and pains of a career climber and concerns of how long he could continue, he began working part time and started to maintain several gardens, starting his own business.  After building up enough work to maintain a lifestyle business, he began to look into ways he could gain access to land for his own uses.  This blog marks the journey into his first 'interesting' use of land.

In the beginning......

....there was a feeling but could of been mistaken for an urge, to get land, any land, any option to do something related to 'what I do' in the words of Matt.  Something involving horticulture or forestry.  After finding some land, he asked a respected customer and now friend for some advice, the land fell through but the discussion on Matt's ideas and dreams continued. 

Whilst walking in Northumberland, our friend Mr Fallon came across an unused walled garden which housed some chickens and a few mature fruit trees.  With Matt's interests in mind, Mr Fallon began investigating the possibility of gaining use of the land.  After discussions with the land owner, who was very keen to see it be put to good use, an agreement was made on Saturday 4th May 2013.

The idea is to use this garden and it's microclimate with it's main function being a vineyard. 

A vineyard????

After Matt had great success at growing grapes on a South facing wall at home using a German White Grapevine, the walled garden seemed like a good opportunity to set up a vineyard.