What I learned from the "Growing Home Wine" Workshop

The Guerneville Library

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On Saturday, February 9, 2013, I attended a Sonoma County Master Gardener workshop at the Guerneville Library entitled, "Growing Home Wine." The presenter was Master Gardener Dennis Przybycien. He did an excellent job and he even sent out via e-mail a copy of his presentation outline to all attendees who wanted it. Very nice idea to do that.

Now, I do not plan on putting in a home vineyard at my house here in the Russian River Valley anytime soon, and I do not plan on making my own wine. But, since all of our Library branches present these work shops for free, usually on a Saturday morning, I think that attending as many workshops as you can is a great way to hone your gardening skills and increase gardening knowledge. And, did I mention they are all free?

One important tidbit of information I got from this workshop is that Dennis feels that getting a soil test before you plant is not really necessary. He feels that these tests are expensive and while they do return a lot of data analysis for you, it is hard to interpret and the information does not really help. He feels that the main goal for soil is to get minerals and micronutrients in your soil that will help plants to grow. Adding compost is the main and least expensive way to boost up the productivity of your soil. He likes Happy Frog fertilizer because it slowly leaches into the soil and is a great mixture of other types of fertilizer and beneficial microbes. He is not a big fan of water soluble fertilizers since they leach straight through the soil.

The most important point he made in my opinion was that there are no hard and fast rules with regard to fertilizing and increasing the productivity of your soil and your plants. He stated that we should observe and take note of what is happening to our plants, then respond to what they are telling us. His message went on to indicate that we should not plunge ahead and pour in everything we can get our hands on and then wind up over-fertilizing our plants and the soil. I felt that this was more than an adequate response to those who make a drumbeat on the web and in garden books, and magazine articles of getting a soil test and then follow exactly what the soil test tells you to do. Can you believe that I have read on the web that there are those who do a soil test at the beginning of the planting season and at the end of the planting season?

I have never done a soil test at my house. And by the way, those personal home testing kits sold at garden centers and nurseries are totally useless. In working in my garden over the years, I have noticed that I have had extremely rocky soil in one location and then 15 feet away or less, I have discovered a heavy vein of clay soil that is several inches deep, if not more than a foot deep. How is a soil test supposed to help me to deal with that? The main solution is to add tons of compost and judicious amounts of natural fertilizers and minerals that will increase the microbe and fungi population and those other helpful critters also known as worms.

Sonoma County Master Gardeners have a great web site and I hope you have a chance to visit it. The gardening information there is extensive and the site is easy to navigate. You can also find out information about upcoming workshops at a library branch near you.