The Old Wagonhouse

The Old Wagonhouse

Monday, October 25, 2010

Muscadel and Rain

With the beautiful rains falling the last two weeks in Calitzdorp I start looking for something more sweet and warming to drink. Well Withoek just released a 375ml of Muscadel. Not too strong - alcohol of 15,5%. Very rewarding in the cooler evenings. And with the summer coming along you can certainly have it with ice as a sundowner.

The Muscadel as you will see is called The Kairos Muscadel. This is in recognition of the Kairos Skills programme which was run earlier this year with Withoek. A weekend course in making fortified wines. You will also see the names of the participants of this first project between the Withoek and Kairos. Watch out for our Cape Vintage also to be released early next year. This will also be in the 375ml bottle which makes it a very pratical packaging and an extremely nice present.

The rain measured on the farm was 22mm last night and yesterday together. I am informed that the rain measured above the Calitzdorp Irrigation dam was 25mm. The water is running down strongly and most of the bridges is overflown. So go and have a look, you will find most of us there. It more practical terms it does mean that we will have an irrigation run in November, December and nearly a full one in January. From this you can gather that the drought still has a grip on us. So pray for more rain.

A wonderful thing about rain is the effect on plants and especially people. Isn't everybody more friendly and the Monday less blue. For the plants you will notice more vigorous growth because of the nitrogen which dissolves in the rain water. Makes a fertilizer and irrigation.

Well enjoy the rain and do have a small Muscadel with it.

Monday, October 18, 2010

And it rained...

Funny how quickly the weather changes.  In Afrikaans we have a saying 'so onvoorspelbaar soos die weer'.  Well last week it felt like it.  With the drought making every person stressing,  I usually look at the forecast often.  Like daily two or three different forecast websites.  Not one was predicting much happening except a light fall on Thursday.  It changed very quickly into a warning for heavy falls on Wednesday.  Well they were exaggerating.  They measured 26mm up in the encatchment area and 14mm in town.  Good enough.
A representative of the Calitzdorp Water Board told me we had 1 official full irrigation run left in the dam and then there will still be enough water to keep the town going for 8 months.  That is if the usage stay as the averages were the last few months. 
Well as a farmer on just judging from where the water were last night at the dam it seems we will have definately one extra maybe two irrigation runs.  That will take us up to January.  Not bad.  Then we must just hope for rain in the next two / three months. 
Well if you have a look at the growth of the plants it is just always a surprise how much better rain is in comparison to irrigation.  The orchards and vineyards look so much more in vigorous growth phase after the rain on Thursday.  Even the birds seem to sing a lot more. 
The vineyards will get there third spray as do the peaches.  The apricots because of the time of harvest nearing now I stopped the spray program.  Maybe later just run a fruit fly spray.  The weather which leads to a more humid climate will enhance fungi growth and thus more spraying will be needed. 
For the concerned under you.  Withoek will be audited for SA-Gap (South Africa - Good Agricultural Practice) which is an program to audit the whole approach to agricultural practice.  As the concern for the Climate Change movement take on the consumer their fears and demands must more and more be met by the producers of food.  The SA - Gap is an South African Auditing program which is based on EuroGap.  Why two?  The cost.  EuroGap cost a lot of money.  Also the laws of our country makes that we sometimes can't meet the spesific requirements of the EuroGap. For instance they want us to burn the containers of the different spays.  The SA law forbids us to do it. 
Withoek still have to put a lot of things into plays to meet all the necessary requirements but we are on our way. 
This week we will finish the thinning of the peaches and plums.  After that the Plastic in the newly planted vineyards and after that the suckering or the vineyards follow.  Lots to be done and not much time.  Seems like harvest is coming a long?

Monday, October 11, 2010

The fruit business

With our currency making muscle all over the world makes all the hi-tech stuff prices drop like over ripe apricots and unfortunately the export prices also. A friend of mine who runs a business in office equipment talks of all the specials running. DVD's, printers, laptops / notebooks, scanners, CD players, external harddrives, etc. Unfortunately with the luxury the apricot / peach canning industry prices all are going down. Like a cliff.
Maybe my trees knows what is going on and they just didn't flower and the few that did, didn't do it with passion. A flower here and there. Real sort of lazy stuff. Why? I am not sure. They got a real good punch of fertilizer at the end of last season - not overdoing it - just enough. The peaches which is in total overproduction are carrying fruit as if it is the last season. A lot of thinning is done. Not a great site for a farmer driving past a orchard with most of its fruit on the orchard floor.
The vines never looked better. Good growth with lots of possible bunches. I allready sprayed twice and will have the third spray on next week. Also have to cover the peaches this week. Maybe even start with fruit fly control. I just hope the gardeners in town - if you only have one type of fruit tree - please do fruit fly control. It doesn't cost much but makes a huge difference to the surrounding farmers. They, the fruit flys, will allready be very active and with the amount of small gardens with fruit trees there will allready be a over populated fruit fly colony inside the town.
We still busy planting the last poles and hopefully will be finished by the end of this week.
The green fig season also starts and I will be picking my green figs. It must sort of be big without having a hole in the centre. If you have any, I am interested in buying.
The irrigation is also running smoothly and the orchards and vineyards really looks healthy and strong. Hopefully we do get rain to continue this excellent start to the 2010 season.