Barreca Vineyards

Barreca Vineyards

From Vine to Wine since 1986

Archive for 2022

To Compost and Beyond

Compost bin at 20°  Outside and 100° Inside November 20, 2022 “Egad” you are probably thinking, “He is writing about compost again.  Surely his brain is starting to rot.”  This article is not exactly about compost but close.  In Stevens County we have a “Soil Health Stewards” group hosted by the Conservation Districts.  You can… (read more)

Posted in Regenerative Agriculture by barrecavineyards
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Earths Treasures

It takes awhile to learn the slow story of geology covering eras, eons and epochs.  The world’s seven tectonic plates spread over time from volcanic seams in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Within those plates are stratigraphic terranes, large masses of rock with related histories.  The names and times of geologic events become more twisted… (read more)

Posted in Blogs by barrecavineyards
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Nothing is Normal

A lot of things don’t seem normal anymore.  It felt like they were building up as the long “Indian Summer” extended from September through October.  But today only one of them hurts more than the others.  Our dog, Gretchen, always waited for us at the top of the driveway when we came back from someplace… (read more)

Posted in Blogs by barrecavineyards
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It’s About Time

Maple samaras released on January 1st, 2019 It’s too dark in the mornings and evenings to do much work outside.  Long needles on the pine trees have turned brown and rain down with every gust of wind.  Yellow leaves are joining them.  The very long “Indian Summer” has turned cold and wet.  It makes me… (read more)

Posted in Citizen Science by barrecavineyards
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What’s Bugging Me

Most of us have been bitten or worse by a variety of insects, bees, ants, ticks, spiders…  They are the essence of “being bugged”.  The usual response is fight or flight, (see Tina Tolliver Matney’s article on Yellow Jackets in the August, North Columbia Monthly.)  As a farmer, insects can be much worse than annoying. … (read more)

Posted in Citizen Science by barrecavineyards
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Lazy Science

My farm (and we could insert several other enterprises here) seems to run mostly in crisis-managementmode.  The best laid plans (assuming that you have actual plans and not just good intentions) often go astray.  The Spring is too wet. The Summer is too hot.  The supply chain is slow and expensive…  It’s not like you… (read more)

Posted in Citizen Science by barrecavineyards
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The Grass is Greener

The Grass is Greener With this very wet Spring everything looks especially green.  The green color is from chlorophyll, the molecule critical to photosynthesis, which turns sunlight into plant energy, specifically sugars.  Looking at the chest-high grass and purple vetch which has taken over the aisles between my rows of grape vines, I had to… (read more)

Posted in Grape Growing, Regenerative Agriculture by barrecavineyards
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Yes this is a website about our vineyard and we do sell wine from it. Typically the shipping charges cost as much as the wine, so we sell most of our wine directly from the winery, at the Northeast Washington Farmers Market, or through local stores: Meyers Falls Market, Ferry County Co-op and Colville Liquor and Wine. We also sell biochar and have another business, Map Metrics, that sells map books of Northeast Washington.

More important than wine for this website is that it displays blog posts about regenerative agriculture and personal posts about our life here. The latest is on top and a topic index is on the left site of the page. A printed compilation of articles, Nurturing Abundance, is also available from this website.

Cover Story 2 years ago