My Tiny PlotMy Tiny Grape Vine
Yes mtp has a Grape vine. I’m extremely lucky in that when we moved into our house the garden had not one but two established Grape vines. One of them was growing on a pergola that was in the middle of the garden so when we had our garden landscaped, unfortunately, it had to go.
The other one was conveniently situated on my south-facing wall, so that one got to stay. It was terribly overgrown. It was so big that it had grown under the roof tiles on our out-house. I had to cut it back quite severely and to be honest I had no idea what I was doing with a vine and so consequently we didn’t get any Grapes from it last year.
This is what I started with back in March this year – a fairly ragged, unpruned vine. I’m estimating that the main trunk of the vine is about 14 years old. I’m assuming it was planted when the garden was landscaped by the previous owners in 1995.
I decided to train the vine using the Guyot system of training. This relies on the fruiting branches growing from two main ‘arms’ which are replaced each year.
By May I had started to see some growth on the arms and was busy tying in new shoots as they formed. So far so good!
By July the vine had reached the top of the wall and had formed at least five or six good sized bunches of Grapes. Now, they are ripening and turning purple. Yes, it turns out that my vine is a black Grape not green. I never thought I would be eating Grapes this year!
That’s some seriously effective pruning! You have inspired me to try and do something with our vine, more than ‘hacking at the bits that get in the way.’
how cool is that!! FAB!!
Have fun with the grapes! I was planning on attempting to make some wine with mine this year, but a combination of pigeons and inertia put paid to that.
Enjoy!
I saved my grape vine (really grape stick) from outside Woolworths. It was for sale at £1.49. We’ve had it for two years now but no grapes yet. Still alive though and climbing the fence.
Very inspirational! I may be tempted to shape up the grape vine on my allotment. The grapes never have ripened properly, but I’m thinking of stuffing the leaves.
Thanks for this wonderful blog and your amazing photographs!
You’ve inspired me too!!
Last year when we moved into our house there was already a metal frame thing with grapes growing up it – several vines all of the same kind of grapes. We got thousands of grapes of it and ended up giving banana boxes full away to people (and hubby took them into work EVERY day!!!).
Anyway, at the end of the season, we cut them back, not having a clue what we were doing but not too worried since we weren’t overly keen on the grapes ourselves and we hadn’t paid for them so… nothing really lost.
Well, this year we have got next to nothing, but the ones that are there are turning purple now.
We are planning on moving the whole lot next year as they are in the way where they are and we are going to do what you did to yours. Just hope ours are as successful!!
Well done btw!!!!
…just as mine were ripening, and I was out on the farm, along came mr. robin, not singing a song- but devouring my grapes! along with all his friends…
The pruning seems really effective. Are you going to have a go at wine making?
It’s beautiful! Well done with caring for it and bringing it to this stage. I hope you get many more grapes each season to come.
That looks so wonderful on that wall and excellent growth. Excellent site and inspiring info, except celery is not the devils food, that’s mushrooms.
Well done! You’ll need to net them to stop the birds eating the lot well before they’re sweet enough for you to enjoy.
I’ve given up on grapes and now have a prolific fig tree, but sadly birds learned in the last couple of years that figs are good to eat.
And now a squirrel has cottoned on, but doesn’t yet realise that the figs need to be left to ripen, so is attacking the unripe ones. That’s OK, though as I plan to eat the squirrel soon!
Just harvested lots of grapes from an old neglected grape vine in my garden in London this weekend, so really interested to read about the progress of your vine. I love the way you’ve pruned it, might inspire me to do something more adventurous with mine…
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