Yr 1 & Yr 2 did a mass grape picking session for the Fruit Department in the Vineyard. 1.5 tonnes of grapes were picked, over 200 hundred crates. The grapes get taken to Plumpton College because they have a renowned Viticulture & Oenology course there (the science, production, and study of grapes and wine), and they make wine out of it. It will be a white wine - the grapes are Orion & Phoenix (both of German origin). It is suppose to be a good year for grape harvesting this year, with a warmer earlier part of the year, a worrying wet/ cooler summer that thankfully picked up with some late nice autumn weather. The weather today was also good for picking, because although it was mainly overcast, it was not raining, there was a very fleeting drizzle of rain, but nothing that stopped activities.
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| Photo 1: The vineyard. |
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| Photo 2: The grapes. |
The grapes were not completely perfect. The whole harvest was allowed a maximum of 5% botrytis. Alot bad/ infected grapes shook off, and anything that could be quickly picked off or trimmed was acceptable, but any grapes that were too bad were just discarded (left on the ground underneath the plants to be picked up later). Any overly small clusters were left, as usually they were too hard. Defoliating a bit more earlier on could have helped with this a bit. This took us until lunchtime.
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| Photo 3: Grapes put into the van after being crated up. |
Back at Glass I checked through the
Plectranthus collection in the corridor soon to be displayed, to see if any need watering. They tend to like being on the dry side - most were fairly moist. Then I helped Sandra make some supports for some growing bulbs. We used small sticks and raffia to tie around them, we placed five in the round pots (five helps the string become more circular when you tie it round them).
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| Photo 4: Support for a Freesia. |
The raffia we soaked in water so that it is more malleable, plus when it dries it tightens a bit more. Raffia is an interesting material in itself - raffia comes from the
Raphia palm of which there are about 20 species mainly from tropical parts of Africa especially Madagascar. They are monocarpic or die after fruiting and the roots stay alive and sends up another shoot. The raffia fibre is the vein of the leaves. Their petioles are often spiky so this must make it really hard to harvest. Plastic pre-made circular ones were used too.
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| Photo 5: Plastic pre-made plant support circles, using one pea stick to stake it in. |
