The work continues over at the Spurriers' vineyard in Dorset. This week Bella Spurrier and her team face the arduous task of bud-rubbing...

So that's it for the bud rubbing, job done. And what a job. It took me, Zoe and the nephew ten days (weekends off). I must say that back-breaking as it was there is a certain satisfaction in having completed the first 'Great Vineyard Task'.

Straightening up at the end of a seemingly endless row was utter bliss, though I can't count the number of times I knelt down beside a vine only to put, simultaneously, my knee on a flint and my hand on a nettle. This hurts more than you might think. Even the nephew, with all the advantages of youth, was heard groaning towards the end of the day.

So then, onwards and upwards. The next thing was giving the vines their first spray. I suppose you could see this as the viticultural equivalent of baptising your baby.

Each vine gets a little squirt of anti-mildew stuff down the tree guard, while Zoe, who believes in talking to plants, murmurs encouraging words as we go along. It's much quicker work, two days to do the lot, and popular with the troops as we take turns to ride on the quad bike, a nice change from all that foot slogging.

In the middle of all this the new tractor arrived only to have to go straight back to the dealer. Too wide to fit between the rows comfortably. Maddening! It returned, re-adjusted, to the great delight of Andrew, the do-it-all man, who has been dying to get his hands on it. I must say it's jolly posh, air conditioning, CD player, FM radio. It's a long way from the tractors of my youth which didn't even have a cab as I remember.

What next? Well there's weed killing, and more weed killing, and cultivating between the rows, and then we spray again (every two weeks), and James and his merry men come to put the trellising up and then believe it or not we might have to bud rub again, and tie in, and pinch out the laterals and well you get the picture.....

Click to see Bella Spurrier’s video diary