Grapevine

moved to property in August, south facing garden, Surrey. Looking down the garden, had lovely grapevine, tons of bunches smallish green grapes. From photos: suggestions as to when/how to prune and generally maintain, as would love more next year. Did take a bunch into garden centre, they mentioned thinning out for less bunches but bigger grapes. Couldn't advise further than that.

 

Its not the easiest to see for which branch to prune on the photos . You can leave certain branches in if you want to extended the frame work of the vine ( let it climb further along the arch) . Any light golden brown this years growth can be cut back to 1 or 2 buds unless its needed for the frame work. I hope if made it easy enough to understand .

The garden centre is referring to the actual bunch of grapes, you cut out some of the grapes out of the bunch so you get larger grapes . Its a bit of a faff to be honest

 

Hi @Karen S and welcome.

We've had our 2 grapevines for a few years now and to be honest we still haven't got it right. I do thin the individual bunches and this year they were a lot better but now I've summoned up the courage to do so I will be even more drastic next year. As Perki has said it is a bit of a faff though.

Not correct maybe but we cut ours down low each year, ours were done about a month ago .

 

I tend to use something called rod and spur pruning if I remember correctly.

Basically you cut out any of the last seasons growth back to one or two buds, the idea is you create a permanent framework and cut back to this each year.

It might seem drastic but they grow like crazy once the weather warms up.

Reduce any new shoots off the permanent stems to one at each point and only allow one bunch of fruit per shoot.

The thinning of the bunches is the bit that I just dont have the patience to do.

I'm still not getting a good crop to be honest as I find the weather is always against me at ripening time.

Do you know your variety?

 

Hi and Welcome,

This recent Beechgrove episode had what looked like a good and easy to follow guide to winter pruning Vines.

BBC iPlayer - Beechgrove Garden - Beechgrove Garden in Winter: Episode 4


These sites may help as well -

Grapes: pruning and training / RHS Gardening

How to Grow Grapes | BBC Gardeners World Magazine

 

Thanks all on this, I pruned back a bit. Now my Husband needs to replace the rotting trellis, so I will have no choice but to cut a lot back for access. Do you think it will recover this year? Any tips?

 

It's not ideal to heavily prune grapes this time of year because the sap is rising as the buds break. Ideally you would prune them back to their framework after the leaves fall and they become dormant and then do smaller cutting back of excess growth later on. I would minimise taking out any thick branches if possible and then relook at what you want to keep next winter. If you take off the whippy growth to two buds from the main stem first and then try to minimise any other cutting.

Grapes aren't as complicated as they seem though. They fruit on new wood in the winter you decide which stems you want to keep and cut the rest back. They fruit on side shoots off this framework and you cut these back to two buds. In May-june when you have a lot of growth you trim off any growth you don't wish to become new framework and trim the growth beyond your two fruiting buds, which should show signs of mini grapes. Then all that's left is thinning and cutting back again to let the air flow around the grapes and maximise the sun to help them ripen (it's at this stage the birds become interested and you might need to cover the crop).

 

Great article in the RHS website. Easy to read and print off and best off all easily understood from year old vines onwards.

 

I have a grapvine and follow the advice given on Beechgrove, the RHS website etc as cited above.
We make wine with our grapes and our average over the last few years is 25 bottles of white.

 

We have 8 white grape vines growing up supports and a pergola. 6 of them have been in situ now for nearly 30 years! 2 were replaced with vines from Wilko and Lidls!!! We make wine from them every year and usually produce up to 40 bottles. When the leaves die back they are pruned right back to the main stem. Any new shoots growing on the upward stem are rubbed off. We also have red grape vines in a greenhouse. These are eating ones but also when we have too many they are harvested, then bottled/frozen/wined. Again they are pruned right back each year.

 

We bought two from Aldi some years back. One died but this one is doing well. @On the Levels, you have quite a production line going there!