Since this introduction we have actually accomplished every one of the next steps listed on the last slide! Dale has learned a lot over the last 5 years and our vineyard practices have evolved accordingly. The first hurdle was simply controlling the weeds in the rows and between vines. I started by weed whacking, but this is too labor intensive for a lazy farmer like me. I switched to Roundup which worked wonderfully but needed a lot of care to not damage the vines. We then experienced some of the hottest summers on record and it slowed the vines establishment and yield. I had decided early on not to irrigate, thinking "they've been doing this for thousands of years without pipes!".  But something needed to be done. After doing a fair amount of reading on permaculture techniques, I began to pay attention more closely to how the wind and water behaved on our property. This prompted me to plant a number of trees as wind/snow breaks.  Lastly, we are now mulching the rows heavily to retain moisture and control weeds. This last, 'Captain Obvious' step was suggested by our son-in-law, Brooke, who is a landscape professional in the Seattle area. He suggested we use Chipdrop.com and a month later we had all the arborist chips we could handle. We're looking forward to seeing how this affects our yield.

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