May 2024

I thought it about time I introduced readers to my four-legged vineyard partner. He goes by the name of Ludo. As you can see from the photograph, he is a working cocker and he likes to have something in his mouth – most of the time. This was taken as he sat in the back of the Defender – his daytime home. He prefers a game bird yet will settle for a tennis ball or stick. It is in his DNA. He is a very active in the vineyard when I am working on the vines: sniffing, chasing, scratching for field mice, pouching a young leveret occasionally which I have to remove from his soft mouth. Hares will leave the young to their own devices during the day to seek food, I guess, only returning to their offspring in the evening. Then there are plenty of tales to be told. We have no rabbits in the vineyard but plenty of hares which is wonderful to behold. The roses at the end of the rows were nibbled to death one spring by hares with the result that I had to dig them out. 

Weather report for May. Very mixed and plenty to worry about. Disease pressure is always in the back of one’s thinking and with that is mind we have been busy spraying tisanes, principally oak bark, willow bark and horsetail.

We are suffering from ‘predation’ in the vineyard. This means damage from deer coming in at night and browsing on our tender young shoots. They are a pest and the damage to the Chardonnay is much worse than I thought. Fortunately, they have left the Pinot alone. The double whammy is the frost damage we suffered badly on the one frosty night in April when the heated wires in the Chardonnay did not fire up thanks to a faulty thermostat. The field is looking a little thin. I have taught myself not to be too gloomy as this is part and parcel of growing vines in England.