We pulled out all the trellis cross-arms, existing stakes, and 11 miles of trellis wire, then brought in large equipment to bulldoze all of the vines, and then  added many truckloads of amendments (compost, lime, and -- ironically -- wood ash) and used a D-8 to deep rip the soil.

We then smoothed everything, planted a cover crop, spread straw over all of the land, and installed redundant erosion control measures for extra safety. This was finished by October 15 in the upper parts, and November 15 in the lower. This was a huge job with many complications.

Now we are laying out the new vineyard. The narrow private road going through the private property is not straight, so we have to make adjustments to our rows to fit around the road and not waste land. The north property line is not parallel to the road, so that presents complications. Then there are things like trees, that we don't want to cut down, and power poles, which we can't.

The previous layout had some short "point rows" that were time consuming to spray, so we are aligning these with longer rows in adjacent blocks. The new layout will have about 15% more acreage. It will have 50% more vines due to slightly narrower row spacing and plant spacing in the rows. But it will have 15% fewer turns, due to improvements in alignment and elimination of very short rows, based upon our experience working with the prior vineyard.

Stay tuned for more as the saga continues to unfold...