Fix up and feed grapevines
It’s a welcome sight to see the new growth unfolding on them
Once they’re established, vines are generally fairly easy to look after. As long as you prune in winter to maintain a good shape and carry out some summer trimming to prevent the vine taking over the greenhouse, you should get a decent crop of juicy grapes.
There are many varieties to choose from and a greenhouse lets you grow ones that benefit from a little extra protection, and it also extends the growing season.
The vine plant itself is totally hardy but for the fruits of some dessert grapes to fully develop and ripen, they need a little extra warmth early in the season and at ripening time. I grow a ‘strawberry grape’ which, when ripe, is the colour of rose wine, and the fruits are very sweet with a distinctive strawberry flavour. They’re lovely to eat straight off the vine and they also juice very well.
I grow a single stem (rod) down the centre of the greenhouse and this provides more than enough grapes for us. The rod is tied to a straining wire with soft string and after a couple of years the string rots, so before there is too much weight on the vine I snip off the old string and make sure the rod is securely tied to the wire.
I also like to give the vine a feed to make sure it has a good supply of nutrients. This is done by sprinkling a little general fertiliser such as blood, fish and bone around the root area.
Although the new growth is only a few inches long, small bunches of flowers are just starting to form, which hopefully means we’ll get a good crop of delicious grapes later in the summer – although there’s still some work to do before we can pick them!