Saturday, August 16, 2008

Post from Spain

Today I am posting from Barcelona in Spain. I have spent most of this week on the Mediterranean coastal region. Grape growing here is very interesting - while the climate is similar to the Barossa Valley, the soils are very different. The stony and chalky type soils produce very low vigour vines. I have visited several wine regions while here, but lack of time will limit me to regions close to Barcelona. Next I am heading to France. The photo is of a typical Spanish vineyard, although this one is a relatively high vigour one. This was taken in the hills above Tarragona.
Back at home it is continuing to rain in small amounts, we have had a total of 14.8mm for the week and recorded some rainfall 6 out 7 days. We have started mowing down our cover crop. This years' cover crop is looking like one of the best we have grown for quite a few years - not a bad result considering it has not had any artificial fertiliser, only the fowl manure we usually put on every second row each year. I think we must be doing something right with our soil!

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