Page 55 - ALG Issue 1 2020

A Derbyshire mini vineyard
Roger’s Nursery at Pickering. It is hardy, and disease resistant and quite early ripening. I pruned all the vines back a bit to overwinter, stretched canes on the two-year plants along the wires and, with fingers crossed, awaited bud burst this year.
All plants except one, Solaris, showed signs of life in May this year and most grew strongly especially Madelaine Angevine, Phoenix and Regent. As recommended for one-year old vines, I allowed one shoot to grow up their bamboo canes, pinching out any other shoots that grow from the sides to one leaf. On the two-year plants (Regent had arrived bearing small bunches of grapes) I allowed a few shoots to grow up from the horizontal canes, hoping
I might get a few grapes this year. I mulched the area round each vine with manure and Growmore, kept the soil around the vines weed free and sowed grass seed between the rows of vines. The vines were given some Epsom salts to provide magnesium early in the season and ammonium sulphate in August.
Look out for news of Martin’s 2019 grape harvest in the next edition of this magazine.
Martin Rumsby
The article on grapes in the latest edition of Allotment and Leisure Gardener (ALG Issue 4 2019) has prompted me to describe my first year’s experiences of planting a mini vineyard on the allotment I work with my family in Leabrooks, near Alfreton in North- East Derbyshire. I have always wanted to make wine from my own grapes
and have, in the past, tried to persuade friends with better financial resources than me to buy a suitable field and plant it with vines, and I would look after the winemaking. No one has taken me up on this offer so when the allotment next to ours came available in the autumn
of 2018 we took it on, and I was allowed to start a mini vineyard among the fruit bushes.
There are several commercial vineyards around here and I know of one allotment holder in Derby who
has planted his whole 400sq yard plot
in vines, so it is obviously possible to grow grapes and make wine, provided the right vines and conditions are selected. According to various sources our allotment is not ideal for growing vines, but it is all I have available. The soil is not very free draining (there is clay 40cm down) and at times it gets quite windy, but it does get the sun freely and I have given the vines some wind protection with a wall of pallets. An auger, a post rammer and a strong son and daughter-in-law were employed
to drive 10cm diameter (1.8m long) tanalised posts into the ground, one at each end of six rows running across
the plot north-east to south-west, with one post in the middle. We wired them up for the Guyot system (single wires
at 40 and 55cm above the ground with double wires 90cm, 1.2m and 1.5m
above them) using plastic coated wire attached to each end pole with stainless steel turnbuckles for easy tensioning. Wires were run through eyes on the middle post.
I read widely on what varieties of vines were suitable for north-east Derbyshire and which would show best resistance to vine diseases such as powdery and downy mildew etc. There is a very good RHS website describing grape vines and how to establish a vineyard. I read several books (e.g. Growing Vines to make Wines by Nick Poulter, Grapes: Indoors and Out by Harry Baker and Ray White and from a USA perspective: From Vines to Wines by Jeff Cox), and found plenty of information online. In the end I selected five wine vine varieties, three white-Phoenix, Madelaine Angevine and the new Solaris and two reds Rondo and Regent. All are quite disease resistant and hardy for growing in colder climes, and in our area should ripen about the same time in mid-late October, given favourable weather.
I bought five two-year potted Phoenix, Rondo and Regent vines from Groves Nursery, Bridport, Dorset to get started. These were all on grafted stock, arrived in good condition and were strong-looking plants. We (well, I helped my daughter-in-law) dug holes for five plants per row, added some pea gravel to assist drainage, some bone meal, a little well-rotted manure and Mycorrhizal rooting compound and trod the vines in (after loosening the root ball) to just below the level of the graft. A 2m bamboo cane inserted by each vine was tied to the wires. These were followed by five one-year old Madelaine Angevine plants from another supplier. I also bought five one-year old Solaris, a new German hybrid variety, from R V
All plants except one, Solaris, showed signs of life in May this year and most grew strongly especially Madelaine Angevine, Phoenix and Regent
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 55