The Vineyard
(Page 3 of 5)
September/October 1975
John Vivian
GRAPE PLANTING AND CARE
PLANTING
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Two-year-old grape vines when received from the nursery are puny looking things, requiring a planting hole no more than a foot across and deep. I dig out this cubic foot of soil, remove rocks, scatter a cup of bone meal on the bottom, then mix it with a couple of shovelfuls of peat, a little lime, a shovel of mature compost, plus enough soil to fill the hole. Roots are trimmed to a six-inch length, spread in a circle and the soil mixture is firmed very well around them, the top left in a shallow dish-like depression to hold water. Like all newly-planted vines, bushes and trees, the grapes receive a good watering each week of summer and fall that we have less than an inch of rain.
I locate the vines against the vertical supports on one of the twelve- to fifteen-foot arbors on the orchard hillside. They have either a reclaimed native or one of the ranker-growing domestics growing at each end to provide arbor cover. The first year young vines need no training, but at planting are pruned of all but the single strongest cane, and this is cut off so that only the two base buds remain. The second spring, after hard frosts are done, but well before buds begin to swell, the vine is pruned again of all but the single best cane and this is tied with baling twine to two horizontal wires stretched between the arbor posts, one thirty inches from the ground, the other two feet above that. The third year the vine is a healthy adolescent five-year-old and we can expect a first small set of fruit. I choose the two best canes at each side of the main trunk and tie them out to the wires at each side. All others are cut off at the trunk, but the two second-best (thickest) canes are cut nearest the wire levels. They are pruned to two buds apiece and will provide the fruiting canes for next year. In succeeding years the old fruiting canes are removed and the same new cane selection, training and pruning as in year three is repeated.
PRUNING
In time the trunk around the wires will get pretty knotty, but that is normal and will not interfere with the vine's productivity. To get the most good grape clusters, many vines should have fruiting canes pruned to a certain number of fruiting buds—and it takes experience to tell just how many. A young or weak plant should only be allowed to produce on five or so buds per cane, and you go on up from there. Productivity is further increased by a constant heavy mulch/fertilizer applied each spring. I pile rocks around at the vine's base and each year dump on a good six-inch layer of soiled bedding from the goat pen.
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