Every few years we try and keep up with that “overhead” work that pays in the long run and this is one of those jobs. It isn’t cheap to put in drain tile but it pays you back in the long haul. Sometimes in better yields sometimes just making a field usable in the first place. Plus it helps for just overall better plant health in both wet and dry years by helping to balance the air/water ratios in the soil.
One reason for Ohio Wine and More to post this is that before you plant a vineyard especially in Ohio you really need to be sure your soil is well drained. With the exception of very few locations especially with the advent of so many new wineries going in across the state most locations are going to need to have a machine such as this one come in and do the prep work. In most cases for vineyard establishment you need to put the drain tile in every 8 to 10 feet to achieve maximum benefit and return on investment. It costs about $1.00 per installed foot so when you are talking ten’s of thousands of feet it can get a bit expensive!
It has been a pretty warm and dry spring so far. You never know if that is a good thing or not. It is great to get out and get some work done early but also if it get too warm too early bad things can happen too. Such as an early bud break in the vineyard that leads to all sorts of problems. Last year we got frozen in late May and that pretty much killed the grape harvest for the year.
We have lots on tap this year in the way of locally produced vegtables, fruit, wine and good times at Maize Valley so keep in touch, and come and see why Maize Valley IS the place to BE!
Boy winter started early, like I think it was somewhere around last June? Anyhow we are seeing some signs of spring here or there. Days getting longer, still daylight at 6:30 Wow! Our vines so far so good. Despite all the snow and cold it really has not been as extreme as it was last winter.
Last winter we had significant die back due to temp in the sub zero teens for an extended period. We did not have that this. The trick will still be to get past that late frost in May however. You can look back on last years posts for that disaster. But that is what we roll with here on the farm.
We are planting more grapes this spring, doing new crops in the greenhouse and some other unique things will be coming up in the field too! Look for us at area farmers’ markets and of course at the main market and winery with tons of new special events and cool tried and true trusted ones as well.
Here are a couple of videos one of the vineyard itself and one of the drive out to the vineyard in my pickup hope you enjoy.
Wines paired with the dinner are boxed and ready to go!
January 21 saw the first of our Vintner’s dinners at Maize Valley for 2010. They are reservation only dinners limited to 40 persons held on the third Thursday of every month. The menu and recipie for each dinner can be found by visiting our website. Reservations can be made by calling or e-mailing us in either case be sure to get a confirmation.
New wines, new food, new friends is how we like to put it for this event series. Our focus is on introducing guests to new wines and pair them with foods we feel are complementary. We hope our guests also meet new friends and enjoy learning more about food and wine along the way.
We try to feature items on the menu we either grow or source as local as possible while still maintaining high standard of quality. During the evening we explain a little about the pairings as well as some of the history surrounding our winery and family farm. Sometimes we just talk about the food other times we might even tell a story about how the Vaughan family has made a living with the land here in Marlboro township since the 1800’s. They have been school teachers, leather tanners, and farmers, you never know what might come to mind.
So please stop on by sometime, sit a spell, but no don’t take your shoes off, this is just a bit higher end than that!
Todd looking at progress of winter greenhouse crops
There is ALWAYS something Happening at Maize Valley! I understand the economy presents some unique challenges now, but I refuse to think that you can do nothing about it. It just forces you to try new things, think harder, work smarter, get better, get out of your comfort zone, move ahead.
That is what made our country great not “gov’t stimulus” or “Nebraska style” change, it is entrepreneurs getting out taking risks with the hope of reward. That lasts long after the handout is gone! Sorry about the “soapbox” there!
Winter time is always a tough time for business especially wineries but new this year at Maize Valley will be our Thursday evening “Vintners Dinners”. A chance for people to come out and learn a little bit more about wine, understand better how it complements different foods, and enjoy the company of others as you travel on this path together.
One unique thing about our Vintners dinners is that even in the winter months some of the entree’ will be grown by us! Right now just for starters it is going to be the salad and wine produced by us will be paired with it. Different dinners will have different themes and pairings.
The dinners will be the third Thursday of the month with limited reserved seating. Move your curser over the pics above and “click”, it will magically take you to a Maize Valley web page with details such as price, dates, menu etc.
Yea I do talk and shoot a lot of videos but here and there I try and do some real work too. I guess we bloggers who actually get out in the real world and actually do something that contributes to our nations GDP are few and far between but here is one of the jobs that we need to get after in the “off season”.
Water is an essential element necessary for plant life. However too much is not good. All things need balance. When soils become saturated plants don’t do well. I had an animal science professor Dr. Kline, that once told us “Water is TOXIC, right up to here!” as he held his finger just above his nose.
Much is the same for plants so we put pipes or drainage tubes in the fields to remove excess water and improve plant health. It is one of the most expensive aspects of farming and requires maintance. In this case we have several plugged or broken field tiles in this particular part of the field and are just getting started trying to identify the locations and dig them up and repair the spots.
The tile can break, get crushed, or get things like tree roots growing inside that leads to low flow and more plugs so we begin the task of “hunt and peck” as we move about the field. Today I had Galen helping me on hand shovel and Burt running the trac hoe. Here are a few videos as we dig into the soil in search of the damaged tile.
This particular tile drains part of our rear vineyard, corn maze, part of an alfalfa field, and haunted corn maze. We were able to find and fix one of the problems but have more work to do in other sections of the field later this winter.
Well I ain’t braggin but hey, sometimes even a blind nut finds a squirl….. or somethang like that? You C right up the street from us not even five minutes away lives this big ole’ metal dinasaur, and he ain’t purple! I have driven by it for a couple of years and this year I just stopped in to see if he might be interested in coming over to play?
Well his owner Mike West of Wild West Entertainment is just about as nice of guy as you could meet and he said “sure we can come over”. We worked out a dinasaur dinner budget (he’s gotta eat ya know), and well two weeks now are history, and the crowds just love to come to Maize Valley to see Megasaurus do it’s version of “Making Pumpkin Pie” Maize Valley Style. We are reloading for one more show on October 24th to highlight Megasaurus’s unique dinning style of cars and pumpkins. Now This is what I call Eating Local!
This fall has been a weather diasaster for us. We have had rain EVERY weekend since we opened the corn maze and fall harvest activities. But ya know what, our sales are down but not like they should be with the terrible weather we have encountered. We have lost all our Friday nights, and most all our haunted nights due to either direct rain or mud that made things unsafe. We upped the anti this year, the new maze games outlined in previous posts I think are paying off . The maze is staying in pretty good shape considering the weather, crowds and poor condition of the corn to start with.
I addition even though the haunt has not opened (one night so far) it allowed me to leverage marketing dollars from a local sponser excited about working with us and I was able to purchase several thousand dollars in radio that has in turn leveraged some other unique marketing ideas.
With this promotional push I had the confidence to go ahead and book Megasaurus which is a national quality act seen at Monster Truck shows all over North America (A similar machine sold for over $500,000 recently). And the story goes on with an agreement for next season as well and possible additional sponsors due the momentum and scope of our efforts to date and plans for next year. “And the beat goes on…..and the beat goes on”!
It’s all fun and games till somebody pokes an eye out or something like that I think Mom used to say… But hey when trying to carve our your place in the pumpkin selling world….sometimes it’s better to be lucky (have a megasaurus live up the street) than good!
When I was growing up I have vivid memories of my dad bringing in a watermelon and cutting it in half then slicing it in circular sections that covered the whole plate, then cutting into triangles like you would a slice of pizza. We would sit in our pavilion off the back of the house look at the garden and the animals in the pasture.
That is how my dad cut watermelon and boy it was good. I would always break off the sweet tip and eat back toward the rind first then come back to the “sweet spot”!
I guess I am old enough or maybe since my parents that grew up in the depression that such a thing was a real treat. We didn’t drink pop, and my dad who worked a second job down at the local golf course would now and then bring me home a Milky Way candy bar maybe once every week or two. But my sugar intake was pretty low by today’s standards!!
Anyhow memories like that are something we try and help families create today with our fresh from the field local produce we grow at Maize Valley and special events. I hope you can enjoy one too!
Also look for us at some of the local farmers’ markets listed on the right side of the page under farmers’ markets.
Yea, we are much more than just a winery, or a vineyard. We (Actually mostly Kay) still farms about 700 acres +/- a few, that is down from 3,000 acres a few years ago. But now we have crops that are much more intensive to produce and take more time and attention. Peppers and pumpkins are just a few, they planted watermelons last saturday too! They fly really good out of my pumpkin cannon, maybe that is why one variety is called “cannonball”??
The peppers you see above number just under 70,000 plants Kay told me. They are ready to be planted and go in the ground much like the tomatoes I showed in previous posts. We sell wholesale to vendors, to restaurants via Fresh Fork Markets. We also attend farmers’ markets in Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Alliance, and Greentown. Links can be found on the lower right corner of the page for these locations, look under “Farmers’ Markets”.
You can also find them at our own farm Market, and in and on some of our entrees’ in our winery cafe’. New this year will be a line of canned peppers called “Pappy’s Peppers” named after my father-in-law, Kay Vaughan. That way we keep those green pepper flavors in the right glass container.
The videos will show the path a pumpkin seed takes to go from Bag to Jack-o-lantern. Much like the corn maze video I will try and follow this crop from start to finish.
