The vineyard in June at the Winter solstice.
The vines have closed down and pruning has commenced in the row on the far right. You need to prune your vines back to a considered number of buds. Using the Scott Henry Trellis which assists in the control of a vigorous canopy, I prune my vines to 28 buds.
June is a month of labour in your vineyard to prune your vines and prepare the new buds for growth in the Spring.
Visit my comprehensive pruning notes here.
You should remove all prunings from the vineyard and either mulch them and spread the mulch over the base of the plants or burn them and spread the potash over the base of your vines as nutrient.
The bed in which your vines are planted will benefit from mulch to supress weeds in the growing period.
I work in a commercial vineyard in the same region and this year, the owner has mulched the prunings of vines together with a layer of poppy mulch to supress weed growth in the growing season.
As long as you don't dig the mulch in it should break down naturally over a year or 2. Digging the mulch into the soil will rob the soil of nitrogen needed to grow your vines.
Once your pruning is done and the vines securely tied down you can move on to other tasks in you garden knowing that the
new season will produce growth from the work you have done in the past. Such is the cycle of the vineyard.
I find this labour of love most satisfying at this time of the year. The wine is in bed for the winter and the vines are asleep and ready for their new season.
I have had my new season 's wine on oak chips for the last 3 weeks.
As soon as I can taste a hint of oak in the wine, I remove the chips and rack the wine.The new racking can be put to bed until October when filtering or fining can take place before bottling.