Tuesday was a day of brief sunny spells and plenty of cloud. The small amount of rain we had fell early in the morning. The daytime temperature for the last 3 days has been just a little bit below normal but milder weather is forecast for the rest of the week, with no night-time frosts.
One of the jobs I didn't get round to in the greenhouse was cutting back our grapevine Himrod.
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| From 2011 Weather Pictures 1 |
I must get this done soon before the sap starts to rise. Spring can come early to the greenhouse bringing the vine back into life.
We can then start to look forward to another sweet crop of grapes like these produced last summer.
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Nice grapes! I have some of those vines in my back yard, along with two other seedless varieties, each type on grape wires that are 13 feet long. I planted them two years ago,and they were year old plants when I planted them. So, they will be starting their fourth year of existence this spring. They all grew so vigorously last year! But, before spring, I have to prune them. That is the issue I have. How perfectly do they have to be pruned? I've read about fruiting from the buds that are supposed to be left on the vines to grow new vines. I am concerned with perhaps cutting off too much as to impair the next growth which should produce grapes. I have not had any grapes from these so far, but I am expecting to harvest grapes this year due to the age of the vines in place. Is it better to leave too much vine in place to make sure you don't curtail your grape production?
ReplyDeleteI would appreciate any pointers you can give me.
I must admit to a really ruthless approach to pruning our vine. As you can imagine in the greenhouse it just takes over if not pruned weekly throughout spring and summer. Indeed one summer it did take over and filled the entire greenhouse.
ReplyDeleteI have a framework of about 5 major stems of vine, one along the ridge of the greenhouse and the others across the width of the greenhouse. I'll cut last years growth back as near as I can to the major stems. Once spring arrives and the vine shoots and new leaves begin to form it's easy to see where the flowers are and grapes will form and I just make sure I don't cut any immature bunches off. This method works for me and we get grapes every year.