We like wine.
And (sadly) climate change means that we can now grow in Suffolk varieties of grape that would previously have worked only a long way South of here.
Anyway, in 2023, we planted 1050 vines in North Field.
In our April 2023 e-newsletter we said this:
Just this week we have added vines to our agroforestry system. We were inspired by a visit from a Dutch farmer who had tackled the airborne disease problem suffered by conventional (dense planted) vineyards by planting her rows of vines a long way apart with wheat in ‘alleys’ in between.
North Field at Wakelyns is characterised by tree lines with only a single line of trees in each tree line (others have two) and with larger gaps between the trees. So we’ve now filled the gaps between the trees in the tree lines with little groups of vines!
We hope that the even lower density of vines in the field will make airborne diseases even less of a problem (important in our organic system). And we are this way also making use of patches of land that were previously just grass in between the trees. So any wine we get (from about 3-4 years time, we hope) is a productivity bonus within our already-diverse agroforestry system.
We are planting a total of 1050 vines from 3 white varieties (Solaris, Muscris and Souvignier Gris) and 3 red (Rondo, Carbnet Cortis and Divico). It was great to have some help from visiting students from Central St Martins.
Here’s some photos:
