Monday, 19 July 2010

Planting!











2nd May 2010
Ernst Weis and his team from Germany machine-planted all 5500 vines in 5 and a 1/2 hours!

(The videos are not speeded-up, by the way!)

Final preparation before planting




April 2010

The blocks were power-harrowed and fertiliser was also applied about two weeks before planting.

Oh Deer!






April 2010

We have a high population of deer locally which must be excluded - deer love to eat young vines and can completely devastate a vineyard. Consequently the whole vineyard was surrounded by deer fencing...




Ploughing


March 2010

After application of fertilisers, the blocks were ploughed - still very wet so ploughing could only be done by going downhill!

Screening & Drainage Trench


March 2010

Poulton Hill occupies quite an exposed position so 800 Italian alder were planted to form windreaks around the blocks. To assist with drainage a ditch was dug along the southern edge of the vineyard area which was also mole-ploughed to help draining into the ditch.

Preparing the ground


February 2010

The blocks were sprayed with weedkiller prior to ploughing. We used a quad bike as the soil is heavy clay and was too waterlogged for heavy machinery.

Marking out


Through the winter the vineyard area was marked out with pegs into blocks for the different grape varieties.

The Go-Ahead

Summer 2009

After a site evaluation by Simon Day of Vine & Wine, Max Thomas gave the go-ahead to plant a 7-acre vineyard on a gentle south-south-east facing slope at Poulton Hill Farm near Cirencester in Gloucestershire.