When my husband and I moved into our home almost six years ago, our property included a well-aged grape arbor. I personally had never had any experience with grapes and really wasn’t sure what to do with them and how to care for them.
To me, it looked like one giant pile of twigs all stuck together and a lush greenery in the summer that the Japanese beetles seemed to enjoy. But to my disappointment, that first year we pretty much had no grapes and what grapes we did have, had this nasty disease on it, making the grapes inedible.
As I did more reading on grapes and the care of them, I realized that what grapes really need is good ventilation to keep disease from being carried. That’s why you find grape vines on a arbor. The air is able to circulate around the grapes and keep problems at bay. My problem was that my arbor was so overgrown and hadn’t been sufficiently cared for that there was no ventilation whatsoever. Every year, I’ve trimmed a little bit more aggressively but this year, I think I really trimmed the vines.
Most of the commercial grape growers have only one main stem with two vines branching off from it…think of it like a ” T “. I’m hoping that this year will produce some great grapes. Last year, I got so many grapes that I didn’t even have time to process them all. I did find that one of my vines had died so I think I’m going to purchase a new vine to put in there. I guess grapes take a long time to get established, so since I don’t need another vine yet, I would rather plant a new vine and let it get well established.
I did have time last year to try a Concord Grape Pie which came out delicious! You can see my blog post about it here.
I’m really curious if the grapes will do well with this much aggressive trimming. But as I have already found out, grapes seem to be one of areas of just trial and error.
You can just cut a branch from your grape vines, let it soak in water for a while, then just stick it in the ground–it will grow into a new vine. Calin does this. Facebook him if you want more details.