Powers - The organic backyard vineyard : a step-by-step guide to growing your own grapes

The Organic
BACKYARD VINEYARD

Planting and caring for your own vineyard offers a sweet reward: freshly harvested, premium-quality grapes ready to be made into wine.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Growing Your Own Grapes

Tom Powers

Copyright 2012 by Tom Powers. All rights reserved.
Photo and illustration credits appear on page 186.

This revised, expanded work incorporates portions of Vineyard Simple:
Howto Build and Maintain Your Own Vineyard by Tom Powers
(Alhambra Valley Publications, 2002).

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of the authors
knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of
the author or publisher. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in
connection with the use of this information.

Published in 2012 by Timber Press, Inc.
The Haseltine Building
133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450
Portland, Oregon 97204-3527
timberpress.com

2 The Quadrant
135 Salusbury Road
London NW6 6RJ
timberpress.co.uk

Design by David Jacobson

Printed in China

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Powers, Tom 1940
The organic backyard vineyard: a step-by-step guide to growing your own grapes /
Tom Powers.Rev. and expanded.
p. cm.
Includes biographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60469-285-3
1. Grapes. 2. Organic viticulture. I. Title. II. Title: Step-by-step guide to
growing your own grapes.
SB388.P677 2012
634.8dc23

2011041688

A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.

Dedicated to my family past and present

Vineyards have been around for a very long time. Maps of Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and Gaul all show vineyards. The Babylonian legend The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to wine as far back as 6000 years ago. The Romans were so fond of wine that they had a god, Bacchus, devoted solely to the fermented juice of the grapevine. In fact, the Romans did a great deal to advance winemaking in Europe, a tradition that was taken up by the French, Italians, and Germans. Early Americans were quick to plant vineyards in the new world, notably Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. Nowadays, there are thousands of vineyards in almost every state and province of North America.

Since the 1970s, winemaking in both Europe and America (and many other regions around the world) has become a science as well as an art, with plenty of opinions and theories about all aspects of growing grapes and making wine. Its true that for premium quality wine, you need good grapes. But many growers and winemakers complicate the process of grape-growing.

As a partner in a vineyard planting and maintenance operation, I have directed the development of more than 100 vineyards, many of them small backyard operations. This first-hand experience has taught me that it is possible to grow grapes organically, provided you work with the natural resources at hand rather than trying to fight against them. My purpose in writing this book is to simplify the process so that an individual with the right conditions can build and manage a vineyard in a sustainable fashion to produce premium quality grapes.

I come from a long line of farmers. My maternal grandfather, Thomas W. Mabrey, settled in the Imperial Valley of California on the Mexican border, raising cotton in 1911 and later starting a dairy farm that supplied milk to the Golden State Creamery. My paternal grandparents, Thomas W. Powers and Ida Powers, were orange growers in Florida starting in 1910. I can think of no better life than that of a grower caring for the land and its bounty.

My fathers family in a Florida orange grove around 1911.

The chapters in this book follow roughly the same step-by-step sequence that you will follow in building your vineyard, from the planning stages, through the installation process, and finally to harvest time.

Throughout the book I refer to one scientific processphotosynthesiswhich is the means by which the green tissues of plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), an atmospheric gas, to sugar. This is important because the sugars are the basic building blocks of the components that ultimately give wine its flavor.

Much of the work in the vineyard is devoted to maximizing photosynthesis. Thats why proper management of the green canopy of the plants is the most important issue that I can stress in caring for your vines.

Yet please remember that grapevines are very forgiving. If you have the right amount of sun, water, soil, and other basic requirements, even if you make a mistake and pinch or break off the wrong shoot, leaf, or berry, dont worry. There will almost always be one that grows back. Be patient with your vines, take care of your soil, and practice good vineyard management, and your vineyard will reward you with good-quality fruit year after year.

Planting a vineyard is a dream for many people who have even a small amount of land. I hope this book helps you to grow your own vineyard, and that the experience is enormously satisfying, only rarely frustrating, and never boring.

My grandfather Thomas W. Mabrey, on his California dairy farm in the early 1920s, on his way to the Golden State Milk Products Company.

Enjoy.

I would like to express my gratitude to the staff at Alhambra Valley Ranch. Martin Martinez, Raul Luna, Damin Luna, Daniel Luna, and Julio Jarquin have been valuable resources in advancing organic practices to allow me to produce grapes that make truly premium wine. Their attention to detail, and the practical solutions they have developed to deal with daily tasks has allowed me the flexibility to explore creative solutions to sustainable farming.

I especially want to acknowledge my ancestors, including my mother, Ruth Powers, my grandfather, Thomas W. Mabrey, and my great grandfather, Anthony Powers. They gained insight into how to care for plants by toiling in small farms in difficult conditions. Their perseverance was an inspiration to me.

Finally I want to acknowledge and dedicate this book to my immediate family: Donna Powers, my wife, and my children Patrick, Jason, and Alicia. You have encouraged me to keep farming in an urban environment. Thank you for all your support.

Tom Powers

Alhambra Valley