Elaborage - Working the Soil

When we arrived we found that the soil between the rows of vines hadn’t been worked for years and as a result was very compacted. Normally, each year every other row will be 'worked' (avoiding the risk of cutting through all of a vine's roots) and then seeded with grass with the alternate rows beeing worked the following year.

This activity is particularly important for us as we have a clay-based soil, elaborage will help with drainage and the introduction of humus.

'Working' the soil involves using various equipment attached to the tractor to first dig deeply and break up the soil and then subsequently turn it into a fine tilth.

For our first year we used a sprung-tine plough, and a rotavator (several passes of each).