We pulled out a tree stump on Saturday. It was the strawberry tree next to the raised beds outside the kitchen window. It was a beautiful tree but very messy and providing shade where none was desired. 20 years old, 20 feet high, and over a foot in diameter. The roots were large and many. It took three guys over three hours to chop and dig away so that the tractor could pull it out. I decided to remove it last week after realizing that that space was where the outdoor fireplace should go, along with an extended patio. It is nice to have the luxury of studying, living with, building sites before designing structures. It makes for much better decisions, with vineyards and sheds and pools and ball courts and gardens and fences, etc. It is sad when a beautiful tree, 20 years in, is in the wrong place. But these strawberry trees, of which we still have 6 or 7, are very messy. We also pulled out 5 of these trees last year from the front yard, and had moved 7 of them 6-8 years ago, into much less tarvelled spaces. These other strawberry trees, however, were all dwarf versions, now maybe 10 feet high.
We have two varieties of wine grapes, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, about 100 vines each. Chardonnay is generally more vigorous and fruitful than Pinot, and about 1-2 weeks earlier in growth. These vines were all planted in 2001. In a grape-growing climate, which does not include our Coastal Zone, in a low-yielding vineyard, one would normally expect 4-5 lbs/vine from the Pinot, and perhaps double that from the Chardonnay. In this vineyard, we are averaging about 0.6 to 0.7 lbs/vine for the Pinot, and 1.8 lbs/vine for the Chardonnay. The Pinot quality is generally poor, due to inadequate ripening and disease. The Chardonnay quality is decent. About 3-4 years ago, we pulled out our two smaller vineyards, reducing our number of vines by 50%. It was never “a dream” to grow wine grapes. My knowledge and interest in wine was minimal in 2001. But, the saying is, if you have land that is otherwise non-agricultural, plant grapes. Our la...
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