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After many years as viticulturist at Chard Farm we've embarked on our own wine project - GeorgeTown Vineyard. Now using my education (B.Agr.Sc and Dip Fin.) skills and experience we're on a journey to create a successful wine business.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Composting



Last week Soon and I spread out the compost I made last winter and spring.


I decided to just try and even out the growth variability due to soil variations. Being predominantly alluvial there is reasonable variation. For some reason the growth variations were great this year. I didn't test the final compost but I'm confident there's plenty of nitrogenous matter in there and it has composted well. I guess we'll see. At the very least we've introduced lots of worms.


We really wanted to do it on a descending moon but couldn't wait as soon had to pick on another vineyard. We weren't far out anyway. We've since had plenty of rain and It'll be soaking right now. The compost I'm making from this harvest we'll put on in early spring then turn it in with a disc and undervine weeder so it doesn't get UV'd and is well mixed into the soil.


It's amazing how little we ended up with after it's composted and dried up a little. So only enough to do the most variable 2/3rds of the vineyard. I'll make a little more this year. Last year I reckon I made more than enough to replace the nutrients we took out in wine.

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