Now that it’s late winter, the garden chores are starting to call. The first on on my list is to prune the grape vines that we have. This is my second year doing this. The grapes were planted about 10 years ago as a hobby for my husband and father-in-law. As time marched on so did demands on their time and tending to the vines got neglected for a few years.
Last year was my first time pruning and it was quite the chore! I spent lots of time reading books, and watching YouTube videos on how to prune and train a vine. Then came time to prune and it took me TIME! I think I was out there two days, I did not rush the process. I didn’t care if we got fruitage or not, my goal was to get the vines healthy and trained again… boy did my efforts pay off! We had a very healthy harvest and I still have grape jam in my freezer. The grapes that we grew for wine also did great, but here’s another learning curve… I let them stay on the vine too long and we got nothing. So lesson learned, when the grapes are full and ready to be picked… pick them! Their is no time to make a plan or wait for the weekend.
So going into this new season of pruning, it was a much quicker process. I knew what to look for, I decided how I want them to grow, and the vines were already tidy (as tidy as a vine can be) from the previous year. This year it took about an hour to get the job done.
If you are curious what we grow, we have five rows of grapes, but not all rows are full. Their was some plant die off due to neglect – I am currently trying to decide if I want to take out an entire row, or replant it. Anyway, we have three rows of Frontenac, one row of LaCrosse and one row of Concord.
I’ve also learned their are two different ways to prune a vine. One is using canes and the other is cordons.
Cordons are just previous canes that have been allowed to grow and off of the cordons grows spurs which will bear fruit. Last year when I pruned, I cut off all the cordons because some were damaged, diseased and in disarray and trained new canes. This year I left those canes, which are the new cordons, and pruned the spurs.
I really like the look of the pruned vines and, as with trying new things, time will tell if it was the right choice or not!
