Chapter 7: Our First Planting - May 2004

Chapter 7: Our First Planting - May 2004

Captain America: We planted the first two acres in May of 2004 with the help of family and friends. It took two solid weeks. We planted 2 rows a day, everyone on their knees with yardsticks to make sure the plants were exactly 6 feet apart. We covered over the dirt by hand. We felt like farmers. Dave’s dad Tod, affectionately known around the farm as the Professor, using what is quite possibly the first transit ever made, laid out the path for our rows. Together with his young protégée, Joe, the Professor made vineyard rows so straight, so perfect, so symmetrical that when aliens do finally invade the earth, they will have navigated their landing based on the great pyramids, and these two acres of vineyard rows. We put the trellis posts and end posts in by hand, first augering holes in the mud, banging the metal post in by hand and then filling the hole in with rocks. All the while keeping a level next to the pole to make sure it was straight. Hundreds of them. It was as painful as it sounds. We spent the summer in the vineyard, all six of us, under Dave’s direction, building trellises, stringing trellis wire, trying, mostly in vain, to control weeds and protect against disease. That fall, we made wine on the porch of the farm house with grapes that we got from our good friend and mentor Frank Salek of Sylvan Farms Winery in Atlantic County. Jules was now fully in charge of the wine making process and the wine was considerably better. Not great, yet. But considerably better.