38. Pruning Old Neglected Overgrown Grape Vines // Restoring Homestead Vlog

Were trying to tame some pretty unruly Grape Vines. Come hang on the farm and see the before and after and the in-betweens too!
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A Budding Homestead.
An Outdoor Family.
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So glad you are here and found our little corner of the internet!
We're trying to switch from Consumers to Producers!
Our goal is to become as self sufficient as we can be.
In the Food were Growing and what we can Forage.
We're not professionals at anything,
Our Hope is that watching some regular folks figure things out,
You can too!
First things first though..
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Thanks for stopping by the Homestead.
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[@OMWP3]

1:02 whewww it’s so gorgeous out there!

[@suntimefarm]

It really is. Takes my breath away sometimes. 💚

[@vickiwood9192]

I know nothing about pruning grape vines, but I can appreciate your efforts to restore the vines' health and productivity. Hope you see great results.

[@suntimefarm]

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve never pruned such old grape vines before! So this will be fun to see how they grow this year! Thanks for hanging on the farm!

[@stevecooper8121]

The one you trim back to a stump will probably do the best, and you'll be able to train it into exactly what you want.

[@suntimefarm]

Yes, I agree, eventually it may. We had a lot of grapes last year even being so neglected, so I am trying to preserve a little harvest for this year.

[@matthewanderson5407]

This is so cool. Please post progress videos throughout the growing season!

[@suntimefarm]

Thanks! Will absolutely do! The buds are just starting to swell, I’ll do an update when we start getting some growth! And I’ll show you how I’m going to do a secondary prune! Thanks for swinging by the farm!

[@chasingsunsets380]

I applaud the effort. Grapes produce on the canes that come off the cordons. There is main trunk, 4 to 6 cordons off of those that get cut back at 5 to 6 feet, and then the fruiting canes. Each year you pruning back to almost the cordon. So anything that grows is off last years growth. There are some great low cost books on the subject. The best fruit comes from the canes that are within 6 feet of the main trunk growing off the cordons. It is hard to destroy a grape vine. Just you can not get a good harvest for a year because of a mistake. Trust me it took a few serious mistakes with grapes to figure out I needed to read a few books

[@suntimefarm]

I understand how to prune manicured grapes… but this is something I haven’t had the chance to try. We still got grapes off these and I still would like to this year. These were planted in the early 80s and while some of them I took back more than others, and I do plan to slowly train them, just not worth not have any grapes this year in my opinion.

[@andrewturk6562]

Thanks for the tips my grape vine for the past three years only get leaves on them and no grapes .but this winter im going to pruen them then i mite get grapes next time

[@suntimefarm]

Depending where you are you can still do this! My neighbors have a vineyard and are still pruning. I’ll do another update when we start getting leaves and show you the next secondary prune I will be doing. I’d love to help you get grapes again! If you have some dry days, at least 3-4 days go out and get all the dead stuff out.

[@suntimefarm]

Also, remember you only get grapes off of last years new vines. Everything else is just taking energy. And, Ideally you want just a couple of vines to keep it manageable.

[@Pwrcritter]

Thanks, my grape vines had gotten out of control. Been selectively cutting them back the past 2 yrs.

[@suntimefarm]

Happy to help! Grapes are so vigorous! A blessing and a curse lol

[@Jamesjghome]

Good job explaining, you mentioned raisins Thompson vines?

[@suntimefarm]

Thanks! Yes, the green Thompson grapes 😊

[@ASPIRANTS_SPACE]

Need some cuttings from each variety.

[@suntimefarm]

I would love to provide these. I’ll look into how to send them in to the world.

[@ASPIRANTS_SPACE]

@@suntimefarm may be via parcel

[@hearthandhome2]

Where are you located? What state and elevation?

[@suntimefarm]

Northern California, right below Oregon. We’re at about 750 ft but we’re in a valley and the mountains around us are about 2000-3000. Lots of micro climates.