Pruning Grape Vines

- It's that time of year again, where we get to start pruning.

Today, we are gonna work on our grapes.

March and April is a fantastic time to start pruning your grapes, and we're gonna show you all the ways.

Now, I'm not gonna lie, I kind of like splurged, and I got myself a little secret weapon.

(pruner whirs) I see so many times people that don't prune their grapes, and if I was that kind of person, which sometimes I am, I would go knock on their door and say, "Can I please prune your grapes for you?"

It needs to happen, grapes thrive with pruning.

Do you know that you can actually cut 80 to 90% of your grapes, and they will thrive even more?

You'll get huge clusters, plus you'll be able to train 'em, so that the following year, they're healthier, they're stronger, and the grapes taste sweeter.

It's true.

If you don't prune your grapes, they will take over, and then, it's really hard to catch back up.

You're gonna have to do a ton of pruning to get them under control.

One thing grapes love is a lot of hot sun, so I do have them along the east side of my garden, so they get that hot afternoon west sun and also south facing sun.

I use them as a barrier in the summertime, so nobody can see inside my fence.

But are they on a trellis that works the best?

No.

Are you gonna hear everyone say, "Never grow 'em on a chainlink fence?"

Yes.

Did I grow them on a chainlink fence?

Yes.

Still works.

It really sucks to prune, but as long as you're diligent and you don't give up, it will be okay.

If you wanna see a really cool trellising system or you have questions of how to trellis your grapes, we actually have a fantastic video for you to go watch, Backyard Grapes with Jessica Lockhart.

She has created a beautiful system and a beautiful trellis for her grapes.

I am very jealous of it, because growing 'em on a fence, again, not my favorite.

If you wanna see any more of our Modern Gardener videos, we're gonna have a ton of pruning videos.

Hit that subscribe button.

We'd love for you to comment and tell us what you think and what are your favorite varieties of grapes.

So, let's get into it.

How are we going to prune these grapes to make sure that we have the best crop this year?

I have a whole wall of grapes.

I wanna make sure I have really good tools, because it gets kind of cumbersome and really annoying, if you don't.

So, let me show you what I use.

One of the big tools, I don't use this one as much with grapes, but sometimes it comes in handy, especially, with those thick cordons or the big thick branches that you have.

Loppers, get yourself some good loppers, and, of course, some snips.

Don't forget your gloves.

It just is so nice when you don't get poked or slivers.

It will like, just use your gloves.

Another thing I use, tape, kinda sounds weird, but it's so nice when you can mark off which branches you wanna keep, which ones you don't, and clear it all out.

Another thing I have is a rag with some bleach solution, so that I can wipe off my blades when I'm moving from plant to plant.

This helps prevent disease from spreading to other plants and making sure that you have clean cuts.

We're gonna talk a few parts that I want you to know about the grapevine, so you know what you're cuttin'.

In a perfect world, if you lived on a vineyard, which I don't, I would have one trunk going up to the top with maybe two to four laterals or what are called cordons, these woody branches that come out, so to have it nice and tall with about two to four laterals, depending on how your trellising is.

Off these laterals, you're going to, that's where your fruit is going to be coming every year, and that's where we're gonna heavily prune.

We have the spur that's gonna be giving off shoots, which are called canes.

The canes is what bears the fruit, then you need to know your nodes.

So here are some little nodes right here that is gonna jet off and also produce growth.

All right, I'm gonna take my trusty tape, and it's gonna help me decipher, which canes I want to keep and kind of where I want to keep 'em.

I am going to probably do about four to five of the canes that I want to keep, so that way I can really look through those ones, and then we'll probably even snip more.

But as you can see, I got a little bit of a mell of a hess here, so we're just gonna go crazy.

But before I do that, I'm going to do some controlled chaos by making sure I don't snip everything off.

And remind you, I want you to know first year canes.

So the cane that you get from last year's growth is what's gonna be producing fruit, so all second year canes, you gotta get rid of 'em.

They're no good anymore.

Chuck them into the pile.

The other thing with your canes, you want them to be the size of a pencil or a little thicker.

Don't go for the little thin ones.

Don't keep 'em, it's not worth it.

Get it about the length of your, or excuse me, the width of your pinky, that is what we're aiming for.

Get rid of anything that looks diseased or moldy.

Anything that doesn't look healthy, get rid of.

So, here's our cane.

You can see, it's a good like same width of the pencil.

I'm gonna cut this little piece down here to get rid of it, but I like to keep about between 10 and 14, depending on how far apart they are at nodes.

So, here's our little node.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Oh, that's kind of long.

Eight, nine.

I'm just gonna stop at 10.

Cutting right above the node.

This is going to be a fruiting cane for us this year.

So this little node is gonna be spurin' off berries for us, some grapes, but when you cut it, you wanna cut right above it.

You can see it is well and happy because it is green on the inside.

This is obviously dead, it's brittle.

There's a lotta diseased stuff.

I actually am just removin' this whole branch, but lemme just show you the difference between that node and this node.

(pruner whirs) See how it's dead inside?

So here's a great example of a spur that we are going to cut down, so that we have fruit for next year.

(pruner whirs) I'm just gonna leave it like that.

(pruner whirs) I cleaned off all the tendrils, I cleaned off the spurs.

I made cuts that are gonna be for the following year to grow new canes.

I made sure that I have my canes that I wanna keep.

We cut off a lot, probably a good 80 to 90%.

Grapes love sun, so the more you clear out, the more sun that can come in, the happier the grape plant, the better the fruit, especially, when we're talking about our canopy and making sure that we can get some sunlight into our grapevines.

And even in the summertime, come about July or August, I will continue to prune some more for all the sunlight to come in.

And the great thing is, they do well in Utah.

Grapes are awesome in Utah.

Some of my favorites.

I love a Cotton Candy.

I also love a Red Flame, like love the Red Flame.

Get the Red Flame.

I also have Concords because they're awesome for juicing, both white and the purple varieties, and then, I have one that's called the Neptune.

Honestly, not my favorite, but my backyard neighbor, that's her favorite.

So she's always comin' over and sneakin' at my grapes or sneaking past my fence and picking grapes.

And I always catch her, but she can have as many as she wants.

Angela, I love you.

Hope you found this video helpful.

If you have any questions, make sure to put 'em down in the comments below, and we'll see you next time.

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