A chilly blustery morning finds me and Isis, my neighbour down in the vineyard being given our first lesson on how to prune the vines.
March is the month for the initial pruning, and my neighbour and good friend Martin demonstrates how the vines should be pruned and tied. Martin is one of the few remaining farmers in the valley who still has a vineyard, he being taught many years ago by one if his neighbours. You can see that the vineyard has suffered from a few years of neglect, but is very salvageable. We learn to cut out the older tired wood and tie the strong youthful shoots to the wires in the old way using willow sticks cut from the tree on the edge of the vineyard grown specifically for the purpose.
Morning one almost a full row done, only another twenty to do, we need to speed up!