Growing Grapes

Growing grapes in the backyard is becoming more and more popular every day. Unfortunately, most home grape growers never put enough effort into growing their grape vines the correct way - the biggest stumbling blocks are normally just pushed aside because they think it is difficult to grow grapes.

Actually growing a grape vine is not that difficult. With some basic knowledge of how the grape vine grows, how to prune grapes, when to harvest the grape crop, you too can have your own succulent grapes from your own garden in no time.

Being an online grape growing consultant, the most frequently asked questions is: How do I prune my grape vine?

When pruning a grape vine, you should have two goals in mind:

• The structure of the grape vine

A grape vine is a vigorous grower, and if you do not keep a close hand on the vine, you will soon face the enormous task of pruning an unpruned or neglected grape vine. I normally tell my grape growers to prune an unpruned vine back, as much as possible - even if you have to prune back all the way to the main stem! Growing the grape vine the correct way from the start, is very important, as this will make your job as a home grape growers much easier and will also make future manipulations a walk in the park.

Make sure, when you start growing grapes, you know the basics of training a grape vine and least know some basic pruning techniques.

• Increase crop size

Grape vines produce grapes on one-year-old wood only and I do believe that this is where most home grape growers make the mistake. For your grape vine to produce a crop size worth mentioning, you must have enough fruiting buds on the vine. Fruiting buds on the right position on the grape vine, is just as important and for any grape growers to get this, you need to prune the grape vine.

Most home grown varieties are pruned with spurs. A spur is a one-year-old cane, pruned back to 2 to 4 buds. In the next growing season, the buds on the spur will open and reveal shoots that will bear fruit.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's a start. As said earlier, learn the basics of growing grapes, and you are well on your way to grow a grape vine that produce grapes for your hole family.