Pruning the Vines, Part I
One of my least favorite parts of tending vines, but one that can’t be ignored. Pruning. It’s got the same ring to it as weeding for me. Except with pruning, I’m actually taking off parts of a healthy viable plant. With weeds you’re just getting rid of something that wants to take over your garden or yard and ruin everything. It’s not the labor part that makes me hesitate to go into the vineyard to lop off shoot after shoot of potential grape producing branches. It’s the fact that I haven’t mastered the skill of choosing what to cut and
Maple Syrup Season, Part III
The final step in the syrup making process involves a finish boil of the sap we transferred from the evaporator into the pots. We complete this process in the house on our kitchen stove top. Check out the Part I http://bonaventuravineyards.com/?p=761 and Part II http://bonaventuravineyards.com/?p=844 blog posts to read about the initial steps that brought us to this point. The goal is a rolling boil, just like with the evaporator. When we have multiple pots, we boil them both at the same time, then as the level drops in each pot, we transfer what remains in the smaller pot into
Maple Syrup Season, Part II
Since Chad is tied up today with the boiling process, I am taking back over the blog for Part II of our series on the maple syrup season here at Bonaventura Vineyards. This year marks the most amount of snow still on the ground when we started boiling; Chad had to shovel out and around the evaporator. Once we have collected enough sap, we wait for a minimum of 30-40 gallons, we begin the process of boiling it down to remove the water. When the sap comes out of the tree it consists of only 2-4% sugar, the rest is
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