What a week!
Hi grape growing friends.
This isn’t the regular grape growing blogs I usually send out, but I thought I’d share my week with you :-/
On Monday, I launched the new Complete Grape Growing System and as said in the previous blog, not without some hick-ups đ , so I had to extend the promotion to give everybody a fair chance to get into the program. I’ve since had some very possitive feedback about what the system offers and will continue to add valuable grape growing info to it in the future. I’m glad to report that the problems, has been sorted out and things are moving allong just fine now – a perfect day, until …
it started to rain which isn’t good, because most of my grape varieties are flowering right now!Â
It kept on raining like I haven’t seen in our valley for as long as I have been living here. The whole night it went on bucketing down and continued Wednesday morning.
Our mountain stream by Wednesday morning (+- 09:00 am)
 – we never could imagine what was about to happen ..
Things started to look bad by Wednesday afternoon as the rivers started to flood the banks, but it kept on raining and raining and raining.
By Wednesday evening things started to look REALLY bad…
Thursday morning after a night of destruction here in our valley, it seemed like the weather was finally clearing up – we were mistaken…
A new flood of rain poured down in the mountains surrounding the valley, feeding the already flooded rivers even more water! Â
Slowly the flooded river started carving into the river-banks feet by feet – getting dangerously close to my vineyards
By lunch we already had 215 mm (+-9 inches) of rain and finally the weather started to clear up (at last!) but not without huge losses …
Some vineyards on the river-banks were totally washed away, and others suffered trellis structure losses as the soil was so wet, the supports simply gave way.
What a week it has been?Â
Luckily it is weekend and it seems like the rivers are setteling down.  Thankfully we are all still alive and well, but next week will have it’s own challenges as we will start to do damage control.
I really hope your week was better than mine, but surely we appreciate the “drier” weekend here.
I hope and pray you will have a great weekend.
Thanks for all your support
Danie
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Filed under: growing grapes • how to grow grapes
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Sorry about all the damage, mother nature is always a challenge. I will keep you in my prayers, I’m glad you have a good crew. Ps I love your new book and the accompanying video’s. The pruning video finally helped me to understand pruning.
Hi Danie
I am sorry to see such a damage to your vineyard. I just wanted to share a saying (it is Argentinian the same as me) “Believe in the sun even if it is cloudy”. Hope things will become better. Have a blessed day,
Veronica
Hi Anis,
Thanks for the reply, I will try to take some pictures when I start repairing the vineyards. At this time, I will first try to save the remaining grape vines and later try to restore the river-bank – just hope it doesn’t rain that much again in the near future đ
Hi Danie. Sorry to see the damaged in your vineyard. Wishing you success to repair the damage and you will get better week. After that, you can share to us about your successfully to repair the damage. Go Danie…Go..
Hi Dan,
Sorry to read that damage by the river.We had the same problem with my Guava orchard beside the river . Due to recent raining season , river overflown and cut into the bank of the river where some hundred of harveting fruit trees were gone with river.So sad . can’t help with the nature disaster.Hope your damage is the minimum.
I am so facinating about your grape vine with bunches of grape hanging down there ( in the oictures in your websites) How I wish I have that in my farm (in the tropical Malaysia)
with best regards.
Michael.
Hi Michael,
Aren’t we helpless when this happens! I am sure you know what it feels like.
Thanks for the reply and good luck on your farm.
Danie
Hi Danie,
SO SORRY to see your destruction!
Hope all of your family and friends are safe.
God Bless,
Martin
Hi Martin,
Luckily we are all safe, thanks.
God Bless
Danie
Hi Dani,
Thanks for your interesting blog, and I thought we had, had it bad here in southern Spain, Hope the weather has improved for you.
Best wishes
Joyce Burnett
Hi Joyce,
Thanks for the reply and yes, it looks like the weather cleared up
Danie
Hi Danie,
I was shocked to see the pictures of the high water level beside your vine. I hope that mother nature can help to cure the damages.
I just subscribed to your site and am joining your blog to learn more on how to really grow grapes. thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Take care.
Azrul Nazim, Sendayan Valley, Malaysia
Hi Azrul,
Thanks for joining, I hope you learn allot from the site.
Danie
Hi Danie ,What a heartbreak to see all your hard work being damaged ,hopefully you haven’t lost too much, I live in Scotland and we have a lot of rain and floods but I have never personally experienced anything like you have. Hope your damage control goes well, if I lived near you I would gladly lend a hand ,Best of luck Edi Ronald.
Hi Edi,
Aah, that’s so kind of you – I’ll buy you a plane ticket to come and help us LOL :-0
Thanks for the reply
Danie
Hi Danie,
A pleasant weekend to you. I’m sorry about the damage to your vineyard. I hope thing will be back to normal soon. Here in Jamaica we are having alot of rain too,
flooding everywhere.
your programme is so educational. Best of luck to you.
Thanks for your e-mail.
Andrea, Jamaica West Indies.
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for the support and good luck to you there in Jamaica as well.
Danie
Hi Danie,
It’s very sad to see the damage of grape vines due to flood water. I hope you are fine and will busy to repairing the vineyards.
Best luck for repairing it earliest!
Thanks Sanjay
Yes, this week will be a week of recovery đ
Danie
Sorry you had such a rough week – my what a lot of water! Hope you are okay and are able to recover fairly quickly.
Thanks Pam, yes we are all okay here.
Hi Danie,
Sorry to hear about the damage caused to your vineyard
by so much rain.
Wish we had some of that rain here in Cyprus, we dont have even
for drinking, we import water from Greece. Luckily your
residence is not near the river.
Ntinos
Hi Ntinos,
Thanks for the reply and good luck to you.
Danie
Sorry to see the mess, hope it’s not as bad as it looks and things get back to normal soon.
Hi Greg,
Well, after being able to get through the river to see the damage from the other side, it actually isn’t that bad, but repairing the river-bank will be a big challenge
Ow! Danie, that looks like such a mess! I hope you and your vines make it through! Here in NYC we’re having unseasonably warm weather and rain, and my backyard vines are very confused, they think it’s spring… All the best to you, your vines, and the mud!
3 days n nights rain- sounds biblical- glad you seem ok.
love the regular hints n updates, while i usually peruse them quickly, they’re all gathering to be studied when we get around to even planting some. You see we live in the Hunter Valley of NSW, which is famous for viticulture; so my partner is less than excited about grapes. I ,love them so one day…..
We also were flooded june 07; and almost inundated.Wil try to send some of our photos. Love your work. charles
Hi Charles,
Got your pictures thanks – what a mess!
Thanks for the reply
Danie
Hi Danie, sorry to see the destruction. Around here they get names like flash flood or Gully Washer. Take it as an opportunity to re-arrange or redesign that part of the vineyard. When Mother Nature decides to do spring cleaning, look OUT!
Best of luck on the repairs,
Hi Fred,
Yep, time to re-arrange as you said.
Thanks for the reply
Danie
Danie, I signed up for the e-book with the promo timeframe, but I was charged full price. How do you handle this? Not happy with the full price, but love the information.
Robert
Hi Robert,
You probably didn’t follow the instruction carefully, but I’ll send you an email so we can sort things out.
Glad you like the information though.
Danie
Robert,
I am trying to send you an email but it keeps on coming back – could not be delivered? Please send me an email or is there a different email I can use?
Danie
My email is corret. You should not be getting a bounce back. Provide me your desired email and we can do it that way.
thank you.
robert
I tried to send you an email again, but it still comes back đ
Robert, log into your membership site where you downloaded the Grape Growing System. There is a support email address on the main page. Ad that email address to you address book and use it to send me an email.
It might be that you have some kind of spam block program that is preventing my emails from comming through.
Hello Danie,
We are having a drought here in the Piedmont of South Carolina, but the 210mm or more rain in a short time can cause a lot of damage as we see in your pictures. Send us more details. How are you and your workers getting along?
We hope and pray you folks are OK.
Fritz
Thanks Fritz
Me and my workers are getting along very, very good. I’ve go the most amazing team here on my farm and both parties know how dependent we are on one another. Things aren’t that bad as the news and media sometimes show it is.
Thanks for the kind reply.
Danie
When you said what a week – I thought you meant how everyone got murdered in the stock market!
Now that the river has created new chanels, for the next heavy rain, you might shore up the near side bank with rolls of a heavy mill plastic and wood support to hold the bank from further encroaching on the vinyard. In the dry season maybe you can reclaim/refil some of the eroded areas and add some plastic edging as well. Good luck.
I planted 200 grapes this year but they were covered by 6-8′ ragweedd! At leaast yours are growing!
Hi Bob,
Yes we are looking into ways to support the river-bank, but it’s a wall of about 10 meters high right now! Will get some experts out to help – seems like the only solution to this mess đ
Thanks for the tip about the plastic edging – will look into it.
Danie
Try looking into placing lateral stone groins instead of a wall along the bank. We have similar conditions here in the Philippines and believe me we get more rain than you. Placing a lateral stone groin that juts a few meters into the river instead of along the bank will help retain the shoreline and keep the bank in place. Several groins spaced ten or twenty meters apart depending on the length of the property should help keep your bank in place. You can build a wall after should you want to but it wont be necessary if your groin retains enough soil in place. Good luck.
Hi Danie,
Sorry to here of your problems hope damage is limited, good luck with the cleanup and hope next week is better for you.
Gerry, Scotland.
Hi there my Scotish friend!
Hope you are well. I am sure next week will be much better, thanks.
Looking forward to this afternoon’s rugby test against Scotland!
Thanks for the reply Gerry
Danie
Wishing you success in repairing the damage and recuperating your losses. Mother Nature can have quite a temper.
Hi P
Yep, somebody (something) did upset her this time đ
Thanks for the encouraging words.
Danie
Danie, it must be a raging river. Called flush flood. I guess a vineyard should be up in the valley, rather down below. Hopefully, you are okay!
Hi Grace.
Most of my vineyards are on higher ground and were spared. Back in ’81 we also had a “flush flood”, but never reached the intensity of this one.
Danie
Hi Danie
Sorry to see the damage. Hope all is OK with you and yours. Mother Nature just showed she is in control as she often does.
Regards
Southwestwineguy
New Mexico USA
Hi Bobby
Yes, when she turns her back on us, well…
Thanks for reply and yes, luckily we are all okay.
Danie
Pictures have a way to take what in some cases is a lot work and worries into an impresive display of natures will.
Get rest whenever you can.
Thanks
Wow Danie, it looks like the rain caused a lot of damage! I hope the ‘damage control’ goes ok…
Good luck!
Brandon Marc
My Wine Cellar
http://www.brandonmarc.com
Hi Brandon,
Thanks for the good wishes.
Danie
This is something i pray that will not happen to my vineyard this year as our normal rain cycle is all over the place.we havent had much rain at all an i keep thinkink that any minute we will have a freak downpour of rain and hailstones.. i hope u have not incured too much damage and loss in your vineyard..
Hi Elke,
Seems like the weather patterns is turned upside down these days.
Thanks for the reply
Danie
Man you really did get some rain. It has been wet here but not like that. I haven’t seen that much rain since Hurricane Agnus went through here back in the 70’s.
I got your new grower system and am really impressed with the update to the book. I am just starting a new vineyard and the information will be a great help. I showed a few of my friends your trellis system and thought I was crazy to spend so much time an money to make something like that. I just chuckled and said to wantch and wait to see our production. ( Mine is just a small vineyard… 3 – 4 60 foot rows of grapes.
Take care and keep dry.
Hi Jim,
Glad you like The Complete Grape Growing System. Just go ahead and construct the gable trellis, we’ll show your friends what can be done đ
Good luck
Danie
Dan
I really feel sorry for you, and in as much I live in southern Nevada in the U.S. Please Send us some of that water!! Hope all will turn out for your efforts and will continue to be in contact.
When things settle down, I will contact you for your book and how to get the neccesary pages to review and purchase.
Your U. S. A Friend
Steve
Hi Steve,
Wish I could send you some of it. Sure I’ll stay in contact – luckaly my home is far from the river.
Thanks
Danie