One day while in the pool I was watching my grapes grow....go ahead, laugh all you want....I did also :) I noticed that my leaves on the vines were disappearing. Oh no, what is going on? I got out of my pool and went to inspect the vines. I noticed that the leaves were all gone except for the veins in them. Now there was nothing to shield the direct sun from my grapes. What happened? I eventually noticed some small ( approx half inch ) Caterpillars crawling all over my vines. I did what most others would do and that is pick them off and put them in a bag and headed to the trash can thinking that was that. There was a lot of damage already done to the leaves. My grapes were being exposed to the sun and there was nothing I could do. They were literally destroying my vines. I noticed that a lot of the bunches were drying out already and there was nothing I could I do. There were still a couple of bunches left and I figured I was lucky to have them. Thinking I had gotten rid of the enemy I licked my wounds and was thankful that I still had a couple of bunches that remained. About a week later while again in the pool I noticed that the enemy I thought I had defeated was now back and as hungry as ever. I immediately took a couple of leaves with the Caterpillars on them and threw them into a small plastic bag and drove down to the plant store. I pulled one out and probably looked so sad when I asked the employee “what are these” ? I was quickly informed that they were called “Grape Leaf Skeltonizers” and yes they would eat all my leaves which would mean that my grapes were done. I thought that I had gotten rid of all the Skeltonizers but I was wrong. The employee sold me a white powder (poison) and instructed me in how to use it. I went home and applied it as I was instructed. It stopped the Skeltonizers and even though I didn't have grapes anymore I was ready for next year.
That was the first year and I thought I will not make the same mistake next year. Next year comes now and the Skeltonizers come back. This time I am ready though I had my poison and I applied it and it worked, I stopped the deadly army in it's tracks....for a little bit. I wasn't happy with putting poison on my food though. I again didn't check my vines and the same thing as last year happened. I lost my leaves and grapes. This was solely due to my being lazy and nothing else so I had no one to blame but myself. I guess the good thing was that I had proved that I could grow grapes, that was important. I just had to be more responsible and I would have some grapes to eat or make wine with in the future. I also realized that there was so much that I didn't know. I didn't know about pruning of the vines. I didn't know about watering etc; My vines grew all over the place. There was even a branch or two that grew into the pool and I had to cut it. While I still knew nothing about the growing of grape vines other then that they grew on wires I still had green, full vines. So for the last 2 years I have grown Cabernet Sauvignon vines in my backyard. I had not yet become The Desert Wine Guy and I was in shock. I had thought I new everything there was to know about growing grapes. WOW, I guess it was back to the drawing board and school. I soon discovered something called YouTube. I saw that there were videos for everything and a lot of times by professionals in their field. The people who were most instrumental in my learning was One Acre Wine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-H20LSRis0) and Jack Sanders of The Sanders Family Winery http://sanderswinery.com/. My wife and I went for a day to Jacks vineyard in Pahrump Nevada and while he was pouring wine my wife and I we struck up a conversation with him. He seemed very interested in the fact that I was developing a small vineyard in Las Vegas and was very helpful with tips on pruning, pest control and developing good wine grapes. These two people are awesome and while I learned so much from the YouTube channel I was actually able to meet Mr. Sanders in person. I continued to have the opportunity to go to professional vineyards in Temecula California and I started to ask questions and take pictures. I started to observe how they were growing grape vines. Hey they did their drip systems? The distance they spaced each plant from one another. The materials they used. I also started to ask questions of the vineyard grower. I learned that all I thought I knew was nothing in reality. That is when I decided to rip out the vines I had and do this right. I sat down with a pen and paper and designed the Vineyard that I wanted. All the while I am watching videos on watering vines, pruning vines etc; I had my design installed and I found a great nursery on line that sold various organic grape vines for very reasonable prices. The final Vineyard layout is Angel vineyard which is named after my oldest daughter because she is such an Angel and a wonderful person and Mirror Image Vineyard which is named after my two identical 3.5 year old twins. I ordered all the vines I needed and got down to the hard part, planting. I started up a Facebook page dedicated to wine and The Desert Wine Guy was born.
I have just recently had bud break on my Sauvignon Blanc as well as my Cabernet Sauvignon vines. I am currently just evaluating things day by day and watching the vines develop now that it appears the temperatures are going to be rising.
Well folks that is it, that is my story. I hope you have enjoyed what you read and I hope I have inspired some of you into growing your own Vineyard(s). I am still enjoying every minute of working in my Vineyards. there are still many months here in Las Vegas of heat and i am hoping by the end of the year the vines that I have pruned will develop nicely. I have also added a Twitter account to my social networking system so please check out all my links I would love to hear from all of you.
Here are my links.
https://twitter.com/DesertWineGuyLV
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgCUb3w1n2S_UGU2yYRkFYQ/videos
https://www.facebook.com/DesertWineGuy
The Desert Wine Guy
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