GRAPEVINE: PRUNING AND PROPAGATING
Once opportunity that I've had in Arkansas is the chance to revive a mostly abandoned vineyard.
The man who used to tend to these grapevines moved away some years ago, and since them, they have gotten very little attention. Thankfully, they are still alive and growing, and now I have the opportunity to attempt to revive them.
This vineyard of Concord Grapes was not in very good shape when I moved down. Last year, the @little-peppers and I removed all of the dead vines. We then let the remaining living vines grow last year, to see how they did. Now that they are dormant and about to wake up, it's time to prune them back.
Since I've never actually tended a vineyard before, I'll be experimenting a bit. I've researched some various opinions about exactly how to do it. I'll try a few different things with each row, and then see what works best to use in the future.
The vines are very overgrown, so by pruning them, I'll have a lot of cuttings to attempt to propagate too! Hopefully, I'll be able to both revive this vineyard and start a few others. I've always loved fresh grapes right off of the vine.
Here are a few before and after photos of what I've been up to.
This method of pruning pretty much cuts the vine back until only a short "T" shape remains. Since the stalk and branches that remain are alive, they will send out new vines which will eventually produce some grapes... hopefully.
The other benefit that I mentioned is that you get a whole bunch of cuttings which you could attempt to propagate. Here is just a small sampling.
Because these cutting are both alive and dormant, when you bury at least a node or two and leave one above the soil to bud, the buried ones should be able to grow some roots, if you keep them moist enough. Whenever you prune the vines, make sure that the ones you plan on propagating are green on the inside, which means that they are still alive.
If the inside is brown and dry, then it is dead and can no longer be used to start a new vine.
Learning at 36 vs. learning at age 4.
Some of these pruning and propagating efforts I've been working on for a few years, while others are new experiments that I'm attempting right now. Unfortunately, I lacked a lot of practical skills growing up that could have benefited me now.
However, since my @little-peppers often spend a good amount of time with me, they can learn these skills now. That way, if they want to use them later, they'll have them. By the time that they are my age, they could have three decades worth of hands on experience or more!
My son "Monster Truck the Pepper" and I built another raised bed to use for propagating. In this controlled environment, we should be able to monitor the moisture appropriately to ensure the best results in our propagation efforts. Since this is just a temporary home for these cuttings and they only need to start rooting here, they are packed in pretty tight, but this should also help us maximize our use of space.
Playing with sticks in the dirt can be a lot of fun for a boy anyway, and if it leads to some extra food for the family, all the better.
We will continue to explore, experiment, and attempt, and we'll let you know how these projects work out. I hope that you enjoyed this little adventure in pruning and propagating!
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Thanks for that!
Your children have an awesome education, I love to see it! Way more valuable than sitting at a table with textbooks :-) I plan to do the same as my boy grows.
I don't comment often enough but thanks for sharing all these interesting posts, I always enjoy them!
Thanks for the comments when you do! Also, I don't check out posts often enough, so my apologies for that!
No worries @papa-pepper, I appreciate it's hard to find time when you're a busy family man! Not sure how you manage posts, let alone reading anything!
LOL - I manage a bit, but just barely!
Excellent topic :) Hope you manage to get a good yield this year! Pruning in Portugal is still considered an "Art" in rural areas, such as the one where my grandparents lived and where we've been living for the last 3 years. Although it seems like such as simple thing to do, the whole "science" of pruning and predicting where the new branches will grow to still baffles me :)
Unfortunately, I left my grandparents area when I was a kid to live in the city, so I didn't get to truly learn that knowledge from my grandparents (both of them paternal and maternal produced wine and table grapes for the household) specially my grandfather from my mother's side, who I followed around when he pruned them, sometimes during Christmas holidays from school. He did tried to teach me and it was like a mantra that he would repeat on each grapevine saying something like "Look for the branches that fruited and just leave 2 or 3 nodes" and then he would say to them, not me, "You will grow to there and you there"... well it sounded better in Portuguese and with his dragged and calm country accent :) ... And obviously they did grow were he wanted them to... Now the more I learn about nature and our bond with her, I wonder if they really had that relationship where he tendered and cherished so much that they like him back and retributed him with all they had... and the wine was truly amazing!
Well I could go on and on about this subject and how I witnessed how their love for nature, almost a symbiotic relationship that at the beginning came from the need to feed a huge family household but was actually a way of life, that is in danger of being lost, where they took care of the land and the land took care of them...
Fortunately (this may sound weird) we hangout a lot of time with the old folks of our village and they are super happy to teach us some tips & tricks for pruning, gardening and farming which is amazing :) Again, we could go on forever about the "Old Folks Gang Bar" and all the knowledge they share with us, specially our homemade honey supplier, who is like a walking encyclopedia... well all of them are in their own "specialty"
Anyway, getting to the point of what my initial motivation to comment was, we have a table grape vine growing in our house's small patio and we've been experimenting ourselves on conducting and pruning her, to have some grapes for eating in the summer but also to make a nice "ramada" (can't find the translation for that word) to have some shadow in our patio for the hot summer days... Also we experimented on pruning our pomegranate tree, but that one was more painful, hopefully we'll try to make pomegranate wine this year :)
So best of luck to you and do share the photos of the grapevine when she's fruiting!
Cheers :)
It looks like you and the @little-peppers did a lot of great work last year. Removing dead vines from a neglected orchard takes some care, too. I bet those plants were much happier last year. Your chore this spring is so much easier. So are all those Concord grapes with seeds? I hope all your cutting set on good roots! Happy spring!
I actually can't remember if these had seeds or not... Hopefully I can let you know this year!
Here's to a great grape growing season in your neck of the woods! : )
We hope so! Thanks.
Nice one. Contracting on vineyards was my life for over a decade in Australia. I mainly specialized in cincturing but also covering,planting,pruning,picking were contracts i dabbled with. I have never tasted Concord and i see they use it mainly for jellies etc but it is still a table grape so maybe you should experiment with cincturing a vine or 2 and see how it goes:).
Thanks for the advice!
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Ok last message as I keep thinking of what to say -- LOL
Resteemed to spread the word.
I entered Steemit partially due to my desire to get off the grid which sucks the life out of us all, and have written about both for years elsewhere.
So we will always have these things in common my man.
Thanks again very very much for your assistance.
Off the grid can be a good idea, so I hope that you can make it man!
I am never sure how best to just message you with you not on email or the chat or issues there.....so I wanted to say that you have been a blessing to me with what I am dealing with and I am VERY very appreciative, like, -- more than you know.
You are very, very welcome brother!
Anything tasty like this around me, the birds and squirrels etc. get. They all did NOT LIKE my hot peppers en masse I grew that I told you about. LOL!
They sure can be a menace!
Good luck with the grapes. So nice that your kids are involved in the projects.
They can help, and they can learn, so it benefits everyone!