Spraying time

Spraying starts at the beginning of May, and continues till the middle of August. There's usually at least one spray to be administered every week, and one day I'll buy a tow-along spray for the tractor. Till then, I'm stuck with the bright yellow back-pack which holds 20 litres at a time (and of course weighs 44 pounds full, so it's important to avoid breaking your ankle on the potholes left by wild boar). To spray all 150 rows takes about 9 hours, usually spread over 2-3 days and avoiding rain showers, as it has to be re-done if it gets rained on less than two hours after spraying. May's spraying is "sandozebe", which is a fungicide, and "kumulan", which is pure sulphur and prevents infestation by tiny spider-like beetles. As we've had more rain this year than last, we've started earlier and have already done 3 sprays of kumulan and 2 of Sandozebe.

A Tool for every purpose

Now that the buds have started to form it seems that they're not very well-behaved. They sprout up all over the vine, not just at the top where we've tied the branch to the wire. You can buy some special chemical which burns off the unwanted "pampres", or there's this special tool I've now bought for 40 euros and I'm damn well going to make it earn it's keep!

The special tool is a cross between a riding crop and an iron poker, and has a vicious blade with a hook at one end to cut the pampres off. Last year it seemed much easier just to use the side of my boot to scrape them off, but after a couple of weeks my 70 euro boots started to fall apart, so maybe the guy who invented the "de-papre-eur" had a point after all. Here's the end result of the vine pictured above.

Weeding Time

Now that the twigs are out of the way, we can see how tall the weeds are growing. Apparently it's not a problem unless they reach the bottom wire (about 18 inches high) then they can pass diseases on to the vines. Ours are already taller than that in places - it's rained a lot more this year than last already, so they need clearing.

Last year Jules and I mowed between each"pied" with the garden lawnmowers, which was a lot of effort, then put weedkiller down to discourage further growth. This year we'll do it differently, putting the weedkiller down first and then mowing between the rows with the Renee the tractor and Renato the topper. Renato, unfortunately, is only 1 metre wide, so the cut is a lot narrower than the gap between the vines. That leaves quite a lot of space where we have to spray weedkiller, so it's taken me about three weeks to finish it.

But look how neat the rows look!


Daresay the weeds will all be back in a month or so if we get more rain, but at least it's another step done. And Renee is sick again - she keep exploding the radiator hose which I've cobbled together - you just can't get Renault spares in France. She does well for her age though - 43 this year!