Saturday, February 7, 2015

Netting the grapes Feb 2015



Sizing up the job
 Waitangi Day Weekend and its time to net the grapes. 
Over many days during summer we have tucked and plucked the vines, taking off the leaves to expose the grapes to the sun, so they ripen. We have plucked the laterals off, and tucked the vines under the wires. Aussie colleagues Annie and Peggy were staying in January and became expert at this work within minutes. With their help we completed a couple of rows within an hour.
Annie points out the finer points


Admiring our work
Annie and Peggy happy in their work!
Working together doing something completely different was fun.

Now of course our work is to keep the birds from eating the grapes.



This year, David bought new nets. They are wider than previous years and hopefully this means we don't have to bend down to tie the nets - back breaking work. The Wairarapa birds are tricky in that they fly at the nets, bite a few grapes and fly off. We have learned we not to have the nets close to the grapes.

Richard places the nets over the vines
Richard came over to help. We have a little bit of experience with netting now, after 8 years. I'm drive the farm bike going super slowly, and David and Richard place the nets over the grapes.

David has made a belay contraption which delivers the nets, and Richard and David work out how tight/loose to have them. Off we set. its hot, around 28 degrees, the work is slow.
Richard and David sizing up the job


Belaying the nets and stretching them over the vines

There's a lot of reaching up with this job

the precision driver



Rich stretching the nets as we go
The nets are on!


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