"M'aidez" call - already answered? A correction

One of Knutsford Royal Mayday's most respected and long-standing organisers has pointed out to me an inaccuracy in the following item I posted back in March 2008, and for which I must put the record straight ...

Knutsford "Royal" Mayday under threat? Whatever next?

In it, referring to letters appearing in the local newspaper around that time, I wrote this:

"But the event itself does not raise money for its own survival. On the other hand, it is very expensive to put on. Much of this cost goes into policing, especially owing to the fact that routes through the town have to be temporarily closed.

The thought of Knutsford without its Mayday is a bit like the thought of Cheshire without Jodrell Bank (don't forget to sign the petition, by the way).

I read a good suggestion today that those taking part could be asked to pay a small fee - say £2. This seems to me to be a reasonable and modest amount, yet it could really make a big difference. Actually, I think it should be made optional, and the amount left to people's discretion: if we value the tradition that much then we will be willing to pay for it. Knutsford is famous for being pretty well-heeled, after all. On the other hand (and perhaps not so well-recognised by the outside world) it is also home to many much less well-off families for whom it would be totally wrong to impose any financial hurdle to their participation.

Surely, those of us who can afford it would be prepared to dig into our pockets to save this gem of ours?"

I'm most grateful to my contact for letting me know that there is in fact a voluntary donation scheme for families taking part in the event: indeed it was devised by her, and already existed at the time I wrote the article. Moreover, she assures me that it has been very successful in raising additional funds each year. This is excellent news. In absolute terms I daresay it is still a drop in the ocean, and cannot hope by itself to guarantee the long-term future of the Mayday. But at the very least it does one exceedingly valuable thing: it demonstrates the considerable affection and high regard in which this unique festival is held by our townsfolk.

Long may it continue.

I do apologise for having got it wrong last March.

Mike

Happy Year of the Ox to All

Boxing Day - vine-pruning completed

Friday 26th December: another brilliantly sunny day. Ideal for completing the pruning, which this time (ie for the wall-grown grapes) entails climbing a ladder. First, a re-cap of what they looked like before pruning:





Ok. To work. For each "spur" you start by removing any old, dead wood:





In the example shown, that left two rods - last season's fruiting laterals. I pruned each of these to about two good buds ("eyes"):





The finished job:



I then repeated the process for all the spurs on all the vines. A certain amount of judgement is needed. If a rod is very thin and weedy-looking, for example, it is worth cutting it out all together to give the remaining one a better chance.

This is what the vines look like now:









Much neater, I feel.

So that's it for now. Next tasks will be in February, when I'll feed and mulch the vines. It's also a good time to plant the cuttings I prepared from the prunings.

Finally, if you're interested, take a look at this web page I set up with some FAQs on vine-growing and winemaking.

Cheers!

Christmas Eve - update on vine pruning

Last night's weather forecast said we'd have to "wait until Boxing Day to see any sun".
Funnily enough, today was gorgeous. Hm.

So I thought I'd continue on with the vine pruning. Remember on Sunday I was starting to prune the ones in the "open ground"? Well I finished them. Not too difficult as there are only five plants.

This is what they look like now:







Again, the contrast isn't too good because of all the shades of brown.

The next task will be to prune the vines growing against the house wall. Here are a few more shots of them as they are now:











You can tell how sunny it was by the sharp shadows, n'est-ce-pas?

These vines are pruned according to the "rod-and-spur" system, which is more straightforward than the Guyot method employed in many open vineyards

For the wall-grown vines all that is needed is to take back the current year's shoots to a couple of strong eyes. One of these will be allowed to develop into a fruiting lateral, and the other will be rubbed out. Because this procedure is repeated annually, a knobbly spur gradually forms, from which the method derives its name (natch). "Rod" refers to the permanent framework of old wood.

I'll post some more pics when I've pruned them.

Meanwhile, have a great Christmas.

A Solstice job: pruning vines

Sunday 21st December - the shortest day ... at last. I can't be doing with all this doom and gloom (and not just the economic/financial variety either!)

Anyway, it's been some time since I posted anything on my blog so I thought I'd do a bit of an update on the state of the vines. December is the ideal time for pruning them (in the Northern Hemisphere, that is!) and that's what I started doing this morning.

These shots should give an idea of what the vines look like before pruning. Note that vines are deciduous, and all the leaves have fallen by now:













In the case of the vines in the open ground (as opposed to against the wall) I've adopted the Guyot system. The idea is to remove all but two or three good strong shoots of the previous season's growth. One (for Single Guyot) or two (for Double Guyot) of these shoots - technically known as "rods" - are tied to the bottom wire. If two rods are used, then one will be taken to the right of the main stem, the other to the left. The pic below shows a plant that has been partially pruned, with only one rod tied in:



I'm afraid at this time of year everything tends to be the same colour, so the contrast wasn't too good. However, I had a brain-wave: why not put a white sheet behind the subject? That certainly helped:







The next stage was to tie a rod to the other side of the stem, and completely remove the surplus one (as it is not needed).

Here's the finished job:



Once growth starts again in spring, the rods that have been tied into the bottom wire will produce "laterals" (rather a daft name in this instance because they will actually be growing more-or-less vertically upwards!). The laterals will - hopefully - bear fruit.

You maybe noticed there's another rod, much shorter than the others, sticking up at the rear of the main stem. It is important to keep one rod pruned in this way, so as to leave at least three good buds ("eyes"). These should develop into three new rods which will form the basis of the following season's crop - and they will be treated in the same way at the end of next growing season. (During the coming season these rods will not be allowed to bear fruit, but will simply be tied into the vertical cane).

I reckon it's also a good idea to think about extending your stock of plants at this time, and the prunings make ideal cuttings. I just bundle them up with a label (VERY IMPORTANT if you grow more than one grape variety) and "heel" them into the boarder in the greenhouse like this:





Then, around February they can be prepared as for any other type of hardwood cutting, and simply pushed into a convenient bit of spare ground. The base of each cutting should preferably be in a sandy or gritty medium, but in my experience it's almost impossible to prevent them from rooting, no matter what kind of soil they're in, provided it doesn't get water-logged.

A couple of years ago I did just that with some Madeleine Angevine prunings, and today I dug them up:



As you can see, they're all nicely rooted. Again, I heeled them into the greenhouse boarder, and when I get a spare hour or two I'll pot them up into something like John Innes No.2. From then on they can be potted on progressively, until big enough to plant out in a "vineyard". Of course I don't actually possess such a thing, but I do have my name down for an allotment!

I realise I haven't mentioned how the wall-vines are pruned. If anything they are even easier to deal with, but as I ran out of time they will have to wait for another day. I'll post some more information then.

Meanwhile, Happy Solstice. Oh yes, and

Merry Christmas!

Mike