The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: bloomer on August 14, 2014, 03:51:55 pm
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Hi the new house has 1 random grape vine, I think it was origiannally in a green house that's no longer there...
Its currently growing all over the patio.
Its in a position where if supporte it will be in a lovely south facing corner fairly well sheltered!
What am I best to do? Does it need a trellis or a wire frame?
Does it need pruning if so when and how?
What about feed are they hungry, what do I feed it.
Its obviously an old plant that just got chopped back by the previous tennents and it needs some love which I am happy to give it but don't know how so any and all advice is welcome!
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We are about to embark on the whole vine trellis thing here next spring.
We have found the people at Sunnybank Vine Nursery (http://www.sunnybankvines.co.uk/3201.html)very helpful. They hold the national vine collection and are very knowledgeable.
They are having an open day on Saturday 13th September which we are going to go along to.
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How lovely :D .
Briefly, you can tidy up some soft excess growth now but don't cut into any woody parts. The main pruning is done in winter when it is dormant and not in leaf. You will be able to see the main stems and decide where you want them to be. They can be tied onto wires or trellis, whatever suits you.
Then all the side shoots are cut back to a a couple of buds from the main stems.
It will love any sort of compost or feed you can give it.
The main thing is not to prune in the Spring when it starts growing as the stems will 'bleed' sap.
Next year :yum: :yum: :fc:
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As above but the great thing with established vines is how resilient they can be. I inherited a vine in my last place - in a silly 6x8 greenhouse and this time of year It'd be like a sci-fi horror film of tendrils pushing thrugh the glass jints, the rof light and the door and almost machete time to get in there. Every year it was a major thinning of new growth to allow ventilation and thin out the bunches. Literally 2-3 wheelbarrow loads came out. After leaf drop was the major prune and re-tie as above.
Note that you can probably still make cuttings now if you are going to do some summer pruning and if you want a bunch more vines. I had to trim some of my young vines 2-3 weeks ago - just a couple of trails - and stuck lengths into a pot on the off-chance with signs of buds turning to new leaves already. Nowt to lose but a pot of compost and a can of water...
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You can cut back at this time of year - just don't take out all the growth! We planted 2200 vines in May and in July went around and removed all shoots except the leader on each vine. Clearly a very different case to yours because yours will be a well established vine so you don't need to do that but vineyards do remove shoots and leaves to allow the vines to concentrate on ripening the fruit and to get the sun through to them. However, the main pruning is certainly whilst they're dormant. You want to get a nice framework that you prune back to each year - the pruning can be quite violent because they grow a lot and that will give you more fruit. Vineyards tend to take back to one leader each time but if you want to cover a wall, you can have a more complex basic framework; it'll just take a bit longer to establish before you start to get lots of fruit.
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Bloomer,
I forgot to add that my Shetland sheep love the vine prunings, especially the soft growth at this time of year ;D ;D . They are like little shredding machines :roflanim: eating the large leaves and soft stems.
I hope you haven't put it all on the compost heap!