Bloom ended early this past week. The first week of bloom was dry and sunny, we had cloudy and showery weather for the rest of the period. Except for one block, fruit set throughout the vineyard was very nice with large berry counts per cluster.
Even without any significant rainfall, we had exceptionally vigorous shoot growth this spring, making for an expensive year of canopy management. But, by mid-afternoon today we finished the bulk of this year's canopy management with shoots tucked and clipped up to the top wire, leaves and laterals pulled on the east side of the fruit zone, and vines hedged (twice already - once to prevent the long end-shoots from bringingin down the trellis, and then again yesterday/today to tip the middle shoots that lagged behind). Usually we hedge twice each season, we'll be lucky if it's only one more time this year.
Things should slow down a bit for several weeks, as the berries/seeds develop. With the warm (mid-90's), dry weather forecasted to begin in the next week or so, I won't feel so bad finally working on taxes inside with some A/C.
