Give me grapes!

June 16, 2013 9:59 AM

I moved into a new house this past winter and was told I had grapevines (I believe concord?). I can see them coming in but any tips for how to best care for the vines to yield the most grapes? So far, I've done nothing but watch.
posted by katie521 to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

Contact your local agriculture organization, extension school, etc. for tips. Grapes are generally very resilient and will produce in all but the most challenging climates. We just sold our home in Denver and had a handful of grape vines that I rarely did anything to until just last year when I pruned the vines in February. Of course they produced less fruit than they ever had before. Sometimes letting nature take it's course is the best course of action.
posted by FlamingBore at 11:43 AM on June 16, 2013

Talk to neighbours. Usually they know what the previous owner used to do.

About grapes in general: Prune them. Leave only two bunches on each stalk (cut of the vine above the bunches, leaving two leaves). Ah, google it...

And coming to fertilizing... I use bone meals and sea weed. But that's just me.

Enjoy your vines!
posted by Rabarberofficer at 1:26 PM on June 16, 2013

Pruning is the most important thing you can do to get the most grapes in the long term, although it's too late this year (assuming you're in the Northern Hemisphere). Wait for next winter. There are various specific ways of pruning grapevines, but the basic idea of all of them is to encourage new growth from wood that's at least a year old (because it's this new growth that produces the grapes). Exactly how to prune your vine really depends on how it's growing and how it's been pruned in the past.

Also: to get better grapes, thin the bunches as Rabarberofficer says by removing all but two (or even one) per stalk. Remove specific leaves that are giving the bunches too much shade. Use bird netting. You may not need to use fertiliser, which can encourage too much green growth instead of grapes.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:06 PM on June 16, 2013

You're so lucky! A few years ago I moved into a rental house that had been the property of one person for about 50 years or so and there was a massive grapevine growing on the back fence. When I moved in it just looked like a dead vine but I was lucky enough to be able to witness the slow growth of leaves and small bunches of green globes growing bigger and bigger until they gradually ripened into enormous bunches of large grapes the most majestic shade of deepest purple. They were a taste that I hadn't experienced since I was a small, small child, way back in the dark days of the early 70's and even then it was an old fashioned taste.

I pretty much did nothing. I watched them grow and ate as many of them as I could. I pruned a bit when it went back to wood after the season.
posted by h00py at 5:57 AM on June 17, 2013