Third round in the vine done

Left pruning on my own, I am now doing quite fine.

Third round out ofe ten towards achieving the diploma in pruning the vine is done. On one hand I can only be satisfied that I :


1) Thursday managed to pass the two written tests. Without use of my dictionary.
2) Sunday managed to work myself under the objective: Four minutes per plant.

On the other hand, I must also admit that I:

1) Thursday hardly managed to prune at all, as I tried to follow the guidance of my teacher. She says several things that are mutually conflicting. What do you do then?

2) Sunday I have my problems when asking Alain as well. What he says is not always in line with what is said in the course, and who is right then?

In short: I do have my difficulties to find out what to do, if much more than one cook spoils the broth. A great deal of it probably caused by the fact that my current level in French simply is not sufficient to employ the finest details, that may very well be necessary in some borderline cases


To prune is a job where you must stay focused all the time. If that is the case, you can do it rather fast. I do not feel left all alone in the middle of an ocean of vine any longer. Guess I am getting there. Parttime anyway.

Work nicely on my own
If I sit on my own and work, I am doing just fine. Often I have no problems to select the branches, I want to work with. The secateur fits my hand nicely now, and I seem to cut off the branches more or less as close to la charpente as I should.

I seem to avoid destruction of buds on the branches that will carry the fruits: The
Prolongements and the lancement, I remember to remove little and useless branches and deead ends, that were not cut closely as they should before. All is done reasonably fast, while I roll upwards on my little wagon, the camionette. Even the cold of the winter - and the snow - I can resist in almost three hours now. Then I am cold.

All in all, through my work in these past weekends I must have exercised some certainty in what I am doing. The quality of my work is as good as what these Chardonnay-vines is laid open to normally. I spot little mistakes, that at least I do not do myself. But acknowledge in the same spirit, that I do others... I just try to avoid the ones that will kick me out of the contest straight away. Should I decide to do it after all.

Since I am no longer so convinced any longer that I actually want to focus myself so much on the necessity of passing this exam. But there is still time to think and decide.

På dansk

Copyright: The copyright for text and photos at bobler.blogspot.com belongs to Solveig Tange. You may use my articles, photos or parts of them for non-commercial use and if I am credited as the author. Feel free to link to this site but not in your own frameset please.