Woodvalley
V I N E Y A R D S
FSA Approved 2024
Copyright © 2024 Woodvalley Vineyards Ltd
All enquiries to: info@woodvalleyvineyards.co.uk
Woodvalley Farm, Outwood Common Road, Billericay, Essex CM11 1HN
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On The Grapevine…..
After a quiet start to the year, Spring is finally springing here in Essex and the vineyard is starting to wake up. Even though the vines are dormant until March/April, there has been plenty of other work around the site to keep us busy!
Issue 2: Q1 2024
We started the year off in the rain checking each of the vines to make sure there were no signs of damage through the winter.
Each vine was pruned down to the fruiting wire so we are ready for maximum growth this year.
The Phases were cut differently being a year apart, but we are going for growth rather than fruit production for 2024, which will hopefully see the Phase I’s in a good fruiting mode for ‘25 (fingers crossed).
With pruning completed by the end of February, we turned to the borders and hedges to prepare the wildflower meadow extensions. Having planted over 300 spring bulbs last autumn, it was lovely to see the first signs of life and colour in the margins.
We had also collected seeds from the wildflowers last year and got the potting table filled with 500+ sunflower seeds and a mass of bee-
Finally to give them all a good start, we have used a natural pellet fertilizer on all vines by Natura Grow. The chemical-
Q2 is set to be very busy! Not only will we be training each of the 1500 vines we have, we are also planting a further acre of Chardonnay with around 1,000 vines due to be planted end of April to early May. This will take us to over 2,600 vines in total, and give us just over the hectare of field upgraded. This also means that we are hitting our target of removing 1 tonne of carbon from the atmosphere.
You can follow the progress on social media, and we will bring you the story in Issue 3…..
On 9th March we were joined by Cllr Chris May from Billericay Town Council and volunteers where we planted around 150 trees that Nathan Hume had been growing in the Norsey Woods Tree Nursery.
Native species including Wild Cherry, Oak and Maple have been dotted around the neighbouring land to replace lost trees and extend the wildlife corridor that is currently enjoyed by a host of biodiversity from Norsey Woods.
The Team at Woodvalley
At the start of March we saw the first signs of the vines waking up from their winter sleep, and “cotton bud” or “winter bud” started showing on both varieties in the Phase I sections. This was a little earlier than 2023 and signs that we had a mild winter.
Within a week, the cotton buds on the Chardonnay have gone into “budburst” and the first signs of leaves have appeared, growing beautifully by the Easter weekend (along with some welcome visitors!).
This is 1 month earlier than 2023, a sure sign of a mild winter.
Phase III Coming Soon!!
See you at the end of June. Enjoy the Spring!