Cutting out the green tape

Shopping bag full of pieces of plastic garden tape.

For a while now, I’ve been annoyed by the sight of pieces of green garden tape scattered around the vineyard.

I’d dropped them as I pruned and tied up the canes during the successive seasons. Along with pieces of colored tape I’d used to mark the vines and pieces of string from the weed wacker, they were starting to uglify the vineyard.

This past Saturday, I took my kids (the two older ones who can walk) to the vineyard. This was a better alternative to having them roll around on the floor in front of the TV all day.

Clearing Russian Thistle from the vineyard.

My son and I broke up and further compacted the piles of tumble weeds I’d pulled a few months earlier. In the meantime, my daughter walked the rows and picked up all the pieces of plastic in the vineyard.

She collected enough to fill a plastic grocery store bag more than half-way.

While this green tape is handy, strong and elastic, it really accumulates over the years. It’s not biodegradable, either. While I’m not a rabid environmentalist, I do prefer to tread lightly and coexist with or in nature rather than subjugate it to a to some detrimental extreme.

So, going forward I will use natural fiber twine in the vineyard. There are many options available through retail: sisal, jute, hemp, cotton and palm fiber.

In the coming year, I will use natural fiber twine to tie up new growth.

I am not sure that I can replace all the elastic tape securing the vines to the t-posts with natural fiber. The trunks thicken each year and the green tape is elastic enough to give and not cut into the trunks.

One option is larger gauge wire:

Securing the vine trunk to the post.

Any suggestions for a viable option are welcome.

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