This is a labor intensive process. Hope we never need to do it again. Not even really sure we need to do it this first time, but we are doing it. The idea is to keep the grapes weed and grass free. Most of the books tell you to prepare rows the year or two before. We like to read the books and then do it any which way we can. Our first step was to hire a tiller to till up 12 rows approximately 80 feet long. Then we decided to cover the rows with landscape fabric and mow around them.

And then the hard part. All that mulch from my previous post is painstakingly loaded and unloaded covering the rows of fabric. I might be putting it on too thick. Or Anne might be going too thin. Or maybe, between the two of us, we are applying it just right.

(The wind is pounding today. This photo is taken from indoors through the spotted window. I was taking a break from the breezes.) As of this moment, we have six more rows to mulch and two more to cover with fabric. *Sigh*

We gots lots of mulch. We were buying mulch by the truck load for about $8.50/yard from Cedar Rapids compost facility. It’s nice stuff. Wood chips. Very dense. Then we decided we would need much more mulch much faster so we bought two truck-loads from Belle Plaine (Pierce Lumber Inc). They were super kind enough to arrange delivery. It’s basswood – a bit stringy, but smells great! We haven’t found anything online that says basswood is bad for grapes, so we hope it will be okay. Jake seems to like it.