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The best way to plant and prune a grapevine for delicious grapes this season
Though challenging, grapes can be a seriously productive vine when treated correctly
Growing grapes can be challenging but tremendously rewarding. Vines can be grown in an unheated greenhouse, on a south-facing wall or on a structure in a sunny part of your garden.
The most common and straightforward way to grow a grapevine is as a cordon, which means creating a single stem from which your fruiting wood will grow (similar to the way we grow a tomato or cucumber).
There are different conditions under which best to grow your grapes - factoring in shelter from the sun and leaning against a wall. The good thing is that there isn't a specific soil needed.
It is perfectly fine to buy and plant a vine now, but you will need to water it well in September, to establish a root system for training in 2023.
How to plant and prune a grapevine
When planting, I’d fork in a couple of bucketfuls of garden compost or well-rotted manure to stimulate root growth in year one. Tie in growth to establish a healthy, strong vine and next winter you can start the process of training the vine as a cordon, as follows.
Come Christmas, cut your young vine back to a strong bud near the base of the plant. This will encourage a robust shoot to emerge in spring, which must be tied in vertically to form the basis of the cordon. As the leading shoot grows over the summer, keep tying it in and reduce side branches to five leaves, and any side shoots from those branches to two leaves. This focuses the plant’s energy on forming a central stem. Remove flowers for the first two years.
Pruning side shoots at the end of summer is perfectly okay: the sap is low at this time of year, so bleeding will not occur as it would do in the springtime.
The following Christmas, do not hard prune the leading shoot back, as by now it should establishing that main cordon framework. Instead, reduce side branches to two buds from the main stem and stop the vine when it reaches the desired height.
From year three, encourage bunches to form by stopping shoots a few leaves from the bunches and knocking back side shoots to two buds. This training means you end up with a productive vine rather than a triffid.
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