Planting A Vineyard in the Poconos
For farmers, the excitement rivals opening day of baseball season at Citi Field, but this is a much different field — a vineyard field. Randy and the crew are pumped for opening day of planting season. They’re planting a new vineyard along Walter’s Road in Hamilton Township, Monroe County.
This vineyard will produce Petite Pearl grapes. They make a fine, dry, full-bodied, red wine.
You can see how we plant about ten vines per minute in the video below. Randy is quite excited to make his YouTube debut here!
The Vineyard Planting Process
In the weeks before planting, we paint guide lines in the field to make sure every row lines up just right.
These are baby Petite Pearl grape vines. They hold up well during tough winters and they are highly disease resistant.
That’s Royce from Eagle Rest Cellars adjusting the single chisel plow on the tree planter we use to prepare the field. Thanks for helping Royce!
Randy is living his dream pulling the plow on his tractor and planting a vineyard in the Poconos.
As the tractor moves, Royce grabs vines and places them into the dirt the plow turns up. The seat wheels push the dirt back together to hold each vine.
The crew follows behind to make sure all 3,200 vines are set well. Thanks Frank and Audra for putting in a hard day’s work!
We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day on the farm. In all, we planted seven acres.
Now, we just have to be patient. It will be at least three years before we can harvest grapes from these vines. Then, it will take some time to press them and ferment the juice. We don’t mind though. We have more than a dozen wine varieties on the shelf to choose from for now.
Good things come to those who wait!
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