Ironweed Around Our Vineyard

During the late summer, my husband always points out this tall purple flower that grows in our south field that we have earmarked for growing more Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. While he is brush hogging the fields he gets really close to the "weed". We haven't been curious enough to find out what this weed is until this year when my husband, brush hogging another area of the field found another stand of this very tall purple flowered weed.
On this day, my husband said, you need to come and see this and bring your camera. I was intrigued. I didn't know what he was going to show me. Then he pointed out the tall weed and the Great Spangled Fritillary that was obviously enjoying the weed. In a previous blogpost, I wrote about Great Spangled Fritillary, such a very pretty butterfly.

When we went home, we did a Google search on tall purple flowered weed and learned that it was an ironweed, (Veronia).

We told our friend about the ironweed growing in our field and she concurred that it was a beautiful weed and she is always looking to get seeds. I found a website on how to grow ironweed:¹
Growing ironweed
Plant ironweed during the early weeks of spring if you’re cultivating it from seed. Ironweed seeds can winter over in the ground when planted in the fall, but you need to start them indoors and transplant in spring.
1. Plant ironweed seeds in well-draining, moist soil full of humus.
2. When starting a tall ironweed plant from a cutting, start it in full sun after the final threat of a frost has passed in the spring.
3. Keep seeds damp during germination.
4. When sowing tall ironweed seeds outdoors in spring, plant them between one to two feet apart. Wait until the seeds develop a plant two inches tall before transplanting outdoors.
5. Plant white fluffy seeds one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in the ground. Note that ironweed seeds spread naturally as a slight wind blows once they’re ready for harvesting.
6. Keep perennial ironweed plants healthy by dividing them every three to four years. Dig up the root of the plants and cut away any dead portions of the root and crown, which often show signs of decay near the center of the root. Cut up the root in chunks, then replant in fresh soil.
Any plant, weed or otherwise that butterflies love to come to is a friend of ours. We hope to have stands of ironweed on the northeast side of our vineyard as a buffer between the vineyard and our forest.
References:
1. Zoey Skye, Natural News, How to identify and grow ironweed, a medicinal plant, July 14, 2020.

Vintage 2021: August Aftermath of Hurricane Henri

We were just saying good bye to our family who were visiting us from the West Coast on Thursday, August 19 and waiting for the rains from tropical storm Fred to passby when another Atlantic storm, Henri came up on our radar. By Friday, we were getting notifications that Henri could make a direct hit on southern New England but the models were really ambiguous as to where Henri would make landfall.
On Saturday, we had some friends come very early in the morning to help us secure the netting on the Auxerrois. Other than that, there was nothing else we could do in the vineyard to protect our ripening grapes.
We did have a bit more work to do because before 2019, all of the wines that we made were being stored in our basement. Lucky for us, we just rented space in an industrial park so all of Friday afternoon, we were moving our wine from the basement to the rental space. We had been planning to do that anyway, so there is nothing like an impending hurricane to expedite the move.
By the time Saturday evening rolled around, the newscast was full of warnings of 3-5 foot wave surges, coupled with a full moon and high tide, all of which sounded very ominous. The weather models now were showing that landfall could be in New Haven, CT or somewhere in eastern CT.
Our home is very close to the Atlantic Ocean so our friend reached out to us and offered her home for us to stay at. We took her up on her offer and spent Sunday morning to early afternoon at her place until at 1:30 the sun came out and we dared to see what was happening. We had power in our home and felt that we dodged a big storm. What happened was that Henri made landfall in the town due east of us in Westerly, Rhode Island, so all of the winds were on the east side of the hurricane and all of the rains were on the west side of the hurricane, where we were.

We didn't get a chance to go to the vineyard until yesterday and we were very relieved that our vines were fine:

As we made our inspection we found that the red varieties are slowly entering veraison:

There are many things to do in this upcoming week which will once again bring temperatures in the 90s with high dewpoints. Translation: it will be hot and humid, these are the dog days of summer.

2019 Louis Latour Bourgogne Gamay

Our son, his wife, and our two grandchildren are visiting all the way from Seattle. He bought this wine as their contribution to a barbecue party we were going to but at the last moment, the days' activities caught up with them so the wine stayed at our home.
We did get to enjoy the Gamay while my husband was shucking oysters and it is a very easy drinking red wine. It is made of 85% Gamay with 15% Pinot Noir to give it backbone, said the label on the back of the bottle.
Our son said that he purchased this wine for around $18.00! This wine is a good value for the money and will go under the Tab Wines Under $20.

Vintage 2021: August Heat Wave

Mid-August finds us in the middle of a heat wave that began on August 11 and continued until August 14. Anytime the weather map looks like this is a good time to head for the cool indoors.

The heat wave may be compensating for what we thought would be véraison that would be a little later this year. We know that the Auxerrois is the first to ripen so we were busy netting our grapes. We had help during the heat wave on Saturday and now all five rows of Auxerrois have been netted!
This will be the first time that we have netted the Auxerois before the birds begin pecking at the sweet grapes. We do this so that the bird pecking which lures fruit flies and other insects won't have the opportunity to turn a beautiful bunch of grapes into a rotten mess!
You can use your senses to tell if the grapes are approaching véraison. The grapes will begin to soften and will feel different when you touch it from grapes that are still in the first growth and lag phase. You can also taste the grapes to see if they are sweet.

On August 12, I brought our hand held refractometer to the vineyard to check on the Brix of the Auxerrois. It was at 11 ^oBrix. I tasted one of the Auxerrois grapes and it was still very acidic, so not yet a tasty treat for birds.