Asleep for the Winter

The vines are now dormant. In the last weeks of September growth came to a halt and the canes began to lignify (become woody). I dehydrated the vines to promote this lignification, then after the first frost I gave the ground one final shot of water to help protect the roots over the winter. I then drained the irrigation system, and just in time, too, because the nighttime temperature dropped rapidly and for a short period was in the mid-teens at night.

So now we will see how well the vines survive the winter cold. Winter temperatures in Moses Lake normally differ little from other Eastern Washington locations, including wine-growing regions of Walla Walla, the Yakima Valley and Quincy (30 miles west). However, in those years when the temperature gets freaky cold, a nearby unfrozen body of water can help moderate the extreme lows, and that is why many vineyards are clustered around the Columbia and Yakima Rivers (and Lake Chelan, for that matter). But the biggest single factor for minimizing winter damage is having a site with good "air drainage," where cold low-lying air moves downhill away from your vineyard to pool in lower areas below. And of course, it's important to have planted grape varieties which are relatively winter hardy and cold tolerant. We're in good shape on both counts, and I believe most if not all of the plants will do just fine. I'm already looking forward to spring!

Drip Hose on the Wire

Oh my aching back.
Also, when you're on a 15-degree slope, what's the trick to keeping the water from traveling down the outside of the hose rather than dropping straight down out of the emitter?

PUD Selling Dark Fiber

This is potentially a big deal. Grant County has become a favored spot for internet data centers because of cheap available power and relatively inexpensive land. Microsoft, Yahoo & Intuit have put their data centers 30 miles away in Quincy. So far, internet companies have stayed away from Moses Lake because the PUD has inexplicably refused to sell them desireable "dark" fiber which give the companies the reliability & control they demand. The PUD has finally seen the light (pardon the pun) and conceded the obvious.

An LA-based group including some former Microsofties recently purchased a former Air Force missile control center located near Grant County International Airport and have turned it into a state-of-the-art data center facility. (The ultra-secure building, called the TITAN I Data Center, was supposedly designed to withstand a 10-megaton nuclear strike! Good luck with that.) The group expects to sign multiple tenants now that the dark fiber moratorium has been lifted.

Read the article

Nearly Done

We're close to being done for the year. All the plants are trimmed and tied to the wires. The grow tubes are off. The only real job left is to get the drip hose off the ground by attaching it to its wire.
I don't think I'll water any more this year. I'll let the vines dehydrate as they head toward dormancy, which should help them deal with winter cold.

beaucoup cailloux

"Cayuse" comes from the French word cailloux meaning "stones." Grapes love 'em. I don't.
Rocky ground is good for grapes for several reasons. First, when the soil is lean, the vine's survival mechanisms tend to direct the limited nutrients to the berry rather than the foliage. The grapes are smaller and the flavors more concentrated and powerful.
Second, the root systems can be deeper and stronger in rocky soil as they dig deep in search of water & nutrients. This makes for a hardier vine.
Rocky soil also ensures good drainage, which is critical for growing good grapes.
Finally, certain types of rock absorb heat from daytime sunshine and then radiate that heat after dark. This warms the ground and can promote the ripening process and help prevent winterkill.
I plan on gathering the rocks in the rows and around the plants as a sort of rock mulch.

Vines on the Wire

Cab franc, sans "underpants" (as Gilbert calls the plant protectors), tied to the wires after some late-summer pruning. Pruning is ordinarily not done in the fall, but was appropriate this year because I've just gotten the trellis wires up.
I emailed Jeff Cox, author of From Vines to Wines, and asked him about when & how to form the cordons, which will be the permanent horizontal trunks of the vine. He kindly responded and advised tying the main cane up now, trimming all lateral shoots, and then forming the cordon out of two new shoots next spring.
I mostly took Jeff's advice, but I have left a few laterals and some foliage on each plant on the theory that there are still several weeks of growing season til the first good frost and I might as well take advantage of all the photosynthesis I can get (for roots and cane) short of diverting excessive plant energy to useless parts of the vine. In other words, I can't bring myself to totally strip the plant naked yet. On several plants I actually did take a couple of likely-looking laterals and began to form the cordon, just for the fun of it.

First Fruits

OK, they won't be ripe for a month and won't be useable for 2 more seasons but... we have grapes.