Exciting Times!

So here we are again in another Heathcote Spring with everything looking green despite the lack of rain this year. Fresh back from the European sojourn culminating in 3 weeks travelling through Central and Northern Spain visiting some of the major wine regions, we're pretty excited to finally get the vines planted. After 8 yrs working on the house, veggie garden, solar system etc, we have finally got the vineyard site ready for planting with the trellising and the irrigation lines done in the last few weeks. Our 300 grafted Tempranillo vines will be shipped from the cool room in South Australia at the end of September, ready for planting. 

Many months of hard work ahead but looking forward to the first vintage in 2018. 

Winter has well and truly set in!

With zero and even sub zero overnight temperatures in Heathcote over the last few weeks, Winter is definitely here! Along with the frigid nights come gorgeous clear, crisp days with little or no wind. Despite the short days, It's a really special time of the year with everything looking lush and green. 

The last few months at Three Dams Estate have been pretty productive with work on the vineyard really taking priority. The 300 grafted Tempranillo vines have been ordered and the rows have been ripped and prepared. We are currently in the process of improving the soil quality with lime and gypsum along with organic matter and have begun sourcing the trellis infrastructure such as posts and wire.

We recently installed a new 10,000 litre water tank that will be used to store water pumped from the dams for summer irrigation of the vines.

The next stage in the vineyard development is our "research" sojourn to the great Tempranillo regions of Rioja and Rubero del Duerro in Spain which kicks off next week. Olé! 

Autumn Update

The days are getting shorter and the cold weather is fast approaching. This year will be the first real test of our attemped 8 star energy rating retrofit. With the help of our french HelpXers this summer, we managed to complete the last of the wall insulating and re weatherboarding. We now have floor, ceiling and wall insulation in the whole house and are anticipating a cosy house when the temperature starts getting close to zero as it can in the depths of winter in Heathcote. 

I'm hesitant to say that the house is nearly finished after 7yrs of hard work but with all the internal painting nearly finished, the bathroom renovation also nearly complete with a new solid jarrah vanity top, basin and mixer, all that needs doing are the polishing of the floors. 

The main job over the coming months is to prepare the vineyard site for planting in October this year and order the Tempranillo vines!

Summer wrap up 2014/15

The "long hot summer" that never came was a bit of a god send in the end at Three Dams Estate!

Last year we decided to advertise for helpers on the HelpX website and were inundated with applications from OS travellers offering to spend weeks or months living with us at the property. Basically we provide food and lodgings (and wine!) and in exchange for 4-5 hrs work per day.

We were really lucky to have a young French couple Alexis and Capucine contact us early after their arrival in Melbourne and on a hot day in early January, they made their way on the bus up to Heathcote. They were very keen to improve their English and at the beginning they were pretty shy to say much at all, especially Capucine who we'd nicknamed Nasi. Capucine is the French word for Nasturtium!

As well as being great people they were very keen to work and really helped us make good headway into the long list of summer jobs which included finishing the re weatherboarding of the house and painting the dining room among other things. We enjoyed many delicious meals and numerous bottles of wine together and much good conversation in English. Especially from Nasi! After 10 days together we were sad to seem them leave.

So after 6 years of work since moving the house up here from a Box Hill, we have finally finished the complete re weatherboarding including the insulation of all the walls. Earlier in the summer I installed and (expensive) roof exhaust fan that switches on automatically when the temperature reaches 30 deg in the roof space. This along with the floor, wall and ceiling insulation has enabled the house to remain around 10 deg cooler inside the house in the middle of a hot day.

Right now we are back to work in Melbourne but are making regular trips back to Three Dams Estate to harvest the over abundant Nectarine tree!

We are also expecting Ross Knight to come and rip the vineyard next week.

The OFF GRID experience so far...

Off grid solar has come a long way since we started experimenting with it back in 2008. Back then 360 watts of panels cost us nearly $2700. Earlier this year, I picked up 1045 watts for $600!

The original system comprised of 2 x 12v batteries and a small 600w Modified Sine Wave inverter which we soon realised was hopelessly inadequate! One advantage of such a meagre supply of power was that we really had to consider every aspect of our energy usage and developed habits that have allowed us to become very frugal. This has translated into extremely low power bills at our grid connected house in Melbourne where we use an average of around 3kWh per day (the average is 18kWh!)

Back in 2008, it was very hard to get any information on setting up a Stand Alone power system and even after scouring YouTube and the Internet, I was still a little bit baffled as how to go about it. These days there are any number of companies supplying all manner of SAPS systems to suit every requirement and budget. 

Our system has gone from the tiny 3 x 120 watt panels to an array of 6 panels with a total capacity of 780 watts. The addition of the wind turbine adds potentially another 300 watts in really good wind which brings the total capacity to just over 1kW, still much less than the average rooftop array on houses in Melbourne.

How this affects our day to day lifestyle up here is very minimal. The only things we can't really run off the system are the toaster, microwave oven, vacuum cleaner or the air compressor. These loads are usually run off the Genset if we need them. The electric oven was traded in for an LPG unit and we use the griller to cook the toast. We also installed a gas fridge and boiling water and cooking etc is done on the gas cooktop.

What about when the sun doesn't shine and the wind don't blow you ask? Well, this does happen from time to time but with the 660Ah battery bank and careful usage, we can usually survive 2-3 days before we need to start the generator.

The best part about all this is that we never need to worry about power black outs and we'll never receive a power bill...ever!

Any questions, email me at: threedamsestate@gmail.com

Spring garden update by Wends

This time of year in the garden holds so much promise! The last of the winter crops are finishing but the fruit trees are literally abuzz with the bees pollinating the flowers of the summer fruits and vegetables. Our nectarine is set for another abundant crop and the newly cut back raspberries are looking verdant. A new pear tree and almond tree have been added to the orchard for next year's harvest. These new plantings have brought the total of fruit trees to fourteen. It is amazing to leave the garden for a couple of days and to return to such luscious foliage growth. The soil is warming and the last downpour has given the ground that spring smell.

 

The olive grove has also been rejuvenated with the moving of 10 of the 30 trees to a more suitable location. Although in the ground for six years many of them are still saplings and the hope is that the new environment will enable the strugglers to be more productive.

 

The deck has been enlivened by the salvaging of some old cumquat trees. A couple of poor old root-bound, neglected trees languishing around the side of the house in some dusty but lovely pots have been lovingly pruned back and given a feed. Looking forward to their growth over the next few months!

 

A new project for this year's planting is the straw bale garden bed system. Such a simple system which can work for any garden whether you have 20 acres to work with or 20 square metres! Straw bales, cut end up, with lots of water and they are a fertile plot for planting. We will be watering in the fertiliser over the next few days before planting the seedlings that are warming in the greenhouse in Melbourne.

Monkeying around with DIY solar.

SOPRAY exhibitor Gina


Ever since setting up the off grid solar system at Three Dams Estate, I've been pretty obsessed with the potential of solar PV to create free energy from the sun. Earlier this year being the renewable nerd that I am, I attended a Solar and Renewable Energy trade show here in Melbourne and was able to acquire some solar panels from the Chinese Sopray exhibitor. Gina on the stand said it was too expensive to ship the panels back to China and offered to sell me the 4 panels (250, 260, 295, 140 watt) for 0.60c per watt ($600).

I didn't have an intended purpose for the new panels but had seen those cheap "plug and play" grid tie inverters on EBay and wondered if I could try and set up a small PV set up on the house we rent here in Melbourne. In researching the feasibility of this, there was some doubt if theses small inverters would actually work with the new digital smart meters we have here in Melbourne now and whether in fact the power generated by the panels would actually be measured as a "load" and subsequently billed as "usage". I decided to give it a try and purchased 2 x 350 watt inverters on EBay for about $80 each.

The next step was to construct a simple array frame to secure the panels to the rear patio roof and run the cabling in through the laundry window and connected to the back of the inverters. I needed up using a separator inverter for each panel as the panels were different (polychrystalline and monochrystalline) and of different power ratings. With identical panels one 600watt inverter would have done the trick.

The panels have been up for 2 months now and as we are coming through Spring with more decent sunlight, the results so far are very encouraging. On a good sunny day between the hours of  about 9am and 4pm the panels generate enough power to put our power consumption at neutral (see graph below). I'd highly recommend this time of basic install to anyone with a bit of DIY nouse. The whole set up cost no more than around $600. Feel free to contact me if you have any queries.