@@REDGardensit’s really up to you how much you let the plant grow. Most of the plant doesn’t produce anything, so you can keep it as tidy as you want. If you grow them like the commenter wrote you may want to keep one single branch, in the style of a pergola and let the side shoots grow but not too much to keep it from shading too much the rest of the tunnel
This is really interesting; I've never considered grapes as a perennial fruit crop, not wanting to permanently dedicate bed space to them, but I may have to give it a go in pots, now. Thanks for expanding my horizons once again, Bruce!
Cool! I was the same. It is interesting how a simple idea can open up the possibility of something! I am also growing peach trees in large pots, though I already killed one 😬
@@REDGardens Hmm. Fruit trees in pots. I'm familiar with the idea from the 17th Century French orangeries, but hadn't considered that for a small scale operation like mine. I have a brutal white tail deer population to contend with, too. I'm about 2.5 years from retirement, so soon I will have the time to explore such fascinating options! Thanks again, Bruce.
My father used to grow the Black Homburg variety in greenhouse in northern England with a similar climate to Ireland. It was rooted into the ground, but with the roots trained outside the greenhouse so inside bed space could be used for other crops, and the leafy growth was trained inside along wires hanging from the roof. He obtained prolific crops which he used for wine making. He spent a lot of time thinning individual bunches of grapes, using long, narrow scissors to clip out individual grapes from each bunch - around one in three grapes were removed, I think - to allow the remainder to swell but also to reduce the risk of rot and fungal problems. Pruning back leaf growth was a constant task, too. Ventilation was important, also to reduce rot. Because of the root run being external he could simply turn a tap on a water butt or hose to irrigate just the grape, and water run off from the roof of the greenhouse also fed the grape roots directly. The vine thrived for several decades (until my dad grew too old to properly care for it) and the wine was always good and plentiful! However, it was very labour intensive.
@@REDGardens I've got a similarly planted black hamburg and this year, I ended up in hospital during May and june. I ended up with such a large crop, I was worried about it all coming tumbling down .I ended up with 80 kilos of grapes. All because I couldn't prune this year
I hope this becomes a series, i would like to see all the challenges and how you overcome them. One thing is that according to expert growers, grape vines are often grafted because there is a pest that most varieties cannot withstand, i think thats one of the things you should look into if you are going to do cuttings and make your own new plants from branches.
I am really interested in the possibilities of grafting, but wanted to try out the native roots first. One of the strange benefits of growing a crop outside of it's natural climate seems to be that some of the pests a diseases don't exist there ... yet. Like the dreaded squash bug doesn't exist here, because the plants it lives off don't grow well here. I a hoping this will be the same with grapes.
Now I didn't expect this but I find it interesting. I wouldn't call myself an expert in this area but I do grow my own vineyard which produces wine grapes from which actual wine is made. It's a really, really small vineyard but as it's not my main source of income, it's enough for me. Anyway, I think I can give some short tips on the subject as, related to what you have said in the video, I have also learnt some things from you over time. - I would have never thought of growing it in a polytunnel, but grapes need a certain amount of hours a year over 10 ºC (or so) so they are in their prime to eat/make wine. I guess Ireland surely has a harsh weather for this to happen, therefore your experiment makes sense in a way. The main problem? humidity and the lack of ventilation. Grapes are very susceptible to fungus infections such as mildew. Some more than others, and it seems that's what you had in the ones that went bad early in the season. The ones at 06:59 definitely look like mildew, actually "latent mildew". Short version: mildew first shows up on the leaves like an oily stain. If not treated immediately (and I mean immediately, as we say here: if you see it, it's already late) it may leave you with no yield depending on the variety. Even if treated, it may not show in the leaves anymore but it may surely show up in the grapes when they are still green. Mildew has a hard time infecting grapes after veraison (when grapes ripe and get their color) but still. If you are not applying any treatment (with Mildew you have to act before it shows up) your fate depends on a rather warm environment but the least humidity possible but also sunny. I mean, it's a fungus so whatever is bad for fungae is likely good for your grapes. - Pruning... to me it's an art, as I haven't seen two people pruning the same way in my life, not event my parents did it the same way, which made it harder for me to learn. I would first and foremost tell you to read about "respectful pruning". If you do that, there's not much more that I can add. The thing is that your cuts should always be on one side so the sap can flow on the other one. Also, don't cut too close to where it will stem next year, as dissecation will affect the plant in that part. - Green pruning is important. When the plant is "waking up" around April, you should remove any new grow that doesn't come out from the branches that the plant grew the year before, as they won't give you any fruit at all (and if, by chance, they do, it won't be worth it at all). You should only leave them if you're thinking of making a new branch for next year, but that's something to learn when you read about "respectful pruning". - Cutting the lead is something that is actually done as well, sometime around late June, first half of July. Grapevines tend to grow the lead and not in "wide", but as soon as you cut the lead, the "side leads" will start to grow as well. That's what you're experiencing. - Watering... that's tricky. It's nice if you water it in Spring and the very early summer, but you should also not water it too much or not at all in late July or August (mind you, they're in a pot and not on soil, so this may vary a little) as the plant will try to keep on growing instead of riping it's graps. It may sound counterintuitive but watering it may work against you in summer. -There's a "trick" to know whether you're watering too much in that time of year: if the lead looks like a curve, such as the ones at 03:50, they are growing. If they don't look like that, the plant has stopped growing, and that's what you want in the weeks before harvesting. If you watter them "too much", they might restart their growth. - The way you are leaving one "trunk" may work, but I suggest you try what we call a "vase" structure, that is, the plant grows any number of "trunks" from 2 up to 4 (generally speaking) and each of those "trunks" has a couple or three new grows left each year. If Spanish is not a problem, or even if it is, there are lots of videos on the subject here on youtube. Just by watching the videos you may learn a lot. Just search for terms such as "poda" (pruning) "formación" (formation) "poda en vaso". Sorry for such a long comment but, still, this is just a "line" in a whole book of what can and should be done with grapevine.
Thanks so much for all that information. Very useful , especially abouthe pruning and the fungal issues. And the watering. And the lead looking like a curve. So much to observe and learn! 😁
@@REDGardens you're welcome, my pleasure to help in a way. Now that I've read myself again, I'd add to the "watering before harvest" that you don't also want your plants to die, there's a balance you have to achieve and having them inside a greenhouse in pots is something completely different and new to me, so that's something for you to experiment with time. Mind you, vines tend to have a rather big main root, not too long but strong, and lots of smaller roots that prospect as far as they can, which mean several meters around and also vertically. So, having them in a pot may seem not the best for their growth unless you keep them "relatively small". Again, I'm no expert. It's just that I've lived my whole life in one of the "wine countries" in Spain so, want it or not, I've learnt it along the way, but different growers do things differently, so you have a lot, and I do mean a lot, to research if you want to. Good luck and I'm looking forward next year to see what you get.
@ That makes sense to reduce watering when the grapes are developing. I have heard the same with later stages of growth for tomatoes, to make the fruit sweeter and more flavourful. Yes, I think there is a LOT of potential learning ahead, including the watering at different stages of development, and how the very constrained root ball changes things.
If you want to grow grape in a pot you should prune it like a little tree with 3 or 4 branches. Fruits grow from a one year branch. Your plants seem to have huge leaves.
What Tommaso said essentially replicates the way grapes are pruned also in the vineyards, where there’s an old stump with either one or two branches from the previous year left about a meter long attached to the bottom wire of the trellises. From there a lot of vegetation grows above those two branches but the fruit is always to be found growing from the one year old branches. all the rest is pruned a couple of times over the aummer to keep the plants tidy and then in the winter they are pruned back again to just the stumo and one or two branches
I've propagated tons of grapes, I would have put those cuttings about 80 percent buried in the medium in a much deeper pot. They're easy to start, I just leave mine outside all winter in our Oregon climate, similar to yours. I'm afraid yours will dry out with so much exposed.
You can wrape the bunch of grape with a very cheap bag of special paper, you can found it on internet. Or just put some bags of insect net around the bunches. Here in Spain is a common way to solve the insect problem in grapevine, if you have a home garden. Liked the idea of pots, thanks so much!
Great video. One small note. I learned on a pruning course that it is best to always prune with the "sharp part" of your pruning shears towards the plant. That way you get a cleaner cut and there is less chance of fungus getting into the wound.
Grapes contain powerful antioxidants, such as flavonoids and resveratrol, which help protect cells from damage caused by free radicals, potentially lowering the risk of chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.
Boskoops Glorie is very popular in The Netherlands. It can withstand cold, it grows abundantly, propagates very well and you have to make a real effort of neglect to have it die on you (when planted in the ground). That said, it might be a good idea not to cut off large parts of a grape trove, but, instead, to 'thin' the trove. This means removing the smallest grapes to create more space for the larger one's to grow even larger and also to create space for air flow. Good luck next season!
I grow with a small community of people in an old greenhouse, we have a grape vine that is around a decade old now and I have learned a couple things about grapes since I've been there that might help you: 1. It is normal for them to send out a looot of side shoots in the summer. this summer we had to prune ours multiple times to keep on top of it. 2. A very experienced grower in his 80's told me that ideally you want to thin out the bunches, ie take the weaker bunches off and take parts of the good bunches out too. (seems like you did something similar) 3. This year we also had problems with mould/grapes rotting. we think it was due to the weather but also a sprinkler we were using nearby to water other crops which happened to also be getting the grapes wet. that was mostly a mistake on our part as last year we had a lovely crop however I think it is a bit weather reliant and I think thinning the grapes probably helps with that! I dont know about growing them in containers and how much to feed them as ours is in the ground and well established but this was a very interesting video and makes me want to give it a try myself.
Hi, the brown spots on the leaves and the rotting grapes are caused by the same fungus, called black rot. To reduce it's impact, you can try to increase air flow through the plant, and remove any affected grape or leaf as soon as they appear. But in my experience it's impossible to get rid of it completely without fungicide (I live in south-western France and my grapes are climbing on a south facing wall and I still get black rot and both powdery and downy mildew). The best "organic" way to control it is to spray with a copper fungicide, although it is no great for the soil as it accumulates over time. I am now trying to grow some disease resistant varieties which are crossed with american grapes. I suggest you could add a few resistant ones to your collection for next year!
If your varieties are seedless, you have to apply gibberiline during flower stage, so that a bigger stem will allow space on the stem for growth. A very crowded arrangement needs planned plant protection during early growth.
I share your pain when the blackbirds have eaten all the grapes when you weren't watching, I'm thinking to build a scarecrow to dissuade them here. Cheers from a South Australian Spring!
I will personally plant them in potatoe buckets (30 l one's) and try using water with bicarbonate soda and few drops of oil against fungal disease. Good luck and thank you for an inspiration.
I only put my first one in this year so can't offer any advice, apart from the RHS is a good initial resource so try there. I put mine in the traditional way, with the roots outside and the vine inside. I'm hoping to train it along the roof of the PT on the North side so it doesn't shade the other plants in there.
My neighbour uses that method. The plant takes up a lot of space, and I think they could do a lot more pruning, but there are usually a lot of grapes! Hope it goes well for you.
Grapes are one of the most difficult things to grow. I live in Italy in an area which is essentially the heart of the wine region of the north west. Everywhere I go I see hills covered with vineyards, so I tried growing a couple of seedless grapes to make dried raisins for the winter and for cooking. However so far I had no luck growing them. I don’t want to apply any chemicals to my vegetable garden, not even what here everyone sprays which is a mixture of copper and sulfur, allowed also in organic farming. Each year I lost the crop to either fungal diseases or even worse parasites diseases. Eventually I gave up completely to the idea I had to grow grapes all above my tomato trellises to provide shade to the tomatoes over the hot summers we have been having over the past decade. I thought it was a perfect combination and instead for the first time this year I had fungal disease spread from the grapes to the tomatoes losing a handful of plants early in the season when we had more rain than usual. This fall I am removing the plants, which I have cut back to a stump after all those diseases appeared in June. I’m giving up on this experiment. Will need to find another vegetable to use as a climbing shade for the tomatoes. I may even try with pumpkins, who knows 😅 wish me luck!
That is tough. I have come to suspect that if you try to grow a crop that is very common in the area, you will end up with all of the diseases and pests, and they are 'endemic' in the area. I think that is one of the reasons I have been more successful with a few crops like squash and grapes, as there aren't the diseases and pests specific to this plants present in the landscape, as so few people grow them, and there aren't native plants of the same family. We have the opposite here with potatoes, as there is so much blight around it is hard to grow the susceptible varieties. Hope you have success with the crops next year!
interesting. I always assumed our climates were very similar, even tho I am on the other side of the 'BIG POND!' My neighbor, about 1/2 mile away has a vineyard for wine grapes. And not far away are other vineyards. (hour's drive, etc). Not to mention, there are plenty of dessert grape growers. For now, I am focusing on my next step on fruit such as some apple, pear, ad blueberry. It is, however, a dream(?) to consider grapes.
Yeah, sounds like quite a different climate. I know a few people with grapes on the 'sunny east coast' of Ireland, but none in the rest of the country. Some people have success in a warm micro climate, like up against a south facing wall.vToo windy and cool for most varieties, but that seems to be changing.
I don't think taking cuttings like this will work for long enough. At least here in Austria we aren't even allowed to do that with Vitis vinifera, because the introduced Phylloxera and the false mildew will end them sooner or later. It seems that some might be crosses between the fox grape, Vitis labrusca, so that might work with some of them. I don't think only mainland Europe is infested by them tbh. Lovely video!!!!!!!!
Thank you very much for this 🍇 growing video. I'm from Scotland and trying to grow three 🍇 varieties outside without any knowledge and still unsuccessful. Bindu
I have definitely not been doing the right things. I do little to my poly tunnel grapes and get quite a few grapes. I think that I need to feed them but have had small size grapes, I now have quite a lot of grape jelly. I harvest in September. My property is a bit farther North than the Red Gardens. Birdy
Grapes tend to have shallow surface roots and deep taproots im a winemaker and work with wine grapes, grapes are particularly vulnerable to potassium deficiency and you need to maintain adequate levels of potassium.
i think it might be possible to grows them outside i have done in denmark wich hase a very simular climet meyby a litle less windy but still just let it grow its pritty big now and gives a fear few grapes
Grapes either 'put on' their fruit at the beginning of last year's Cane or in the middle. Pruning back to just a few Nodes on a Cane that produces Fruit in it's center will offer no fruit. It's either 'Cane' or 'Cordon and Spur' pruning. Bruce... meet Tom: ua-cam.com/video/HBHApvOj8rc/v-deo.htmlsi=_S4utLwFAM5BAmrl . Love your content!!!
@@REDGardens My best bunches were nearly 40-50% thnned. I think that if I start as soon as the flowers set next year I might not have to thin out ANY bunches at all as thinning has the same effect
I'm continental EU, so i can grow grape in soil, but do to various reason ( altitude/colder winters and testing a more heat loving variety) i grew as test one in a 75l container on the patio . I didn't prune that much like you (maybe should have), this year had around 15-20 clusters, but individual fruits were small, like a pea ( should watered more ? ) But the biggest problem , which is unrelated to being in pots : all were eaten by wasps :( Same with the earlier varieties in soil. Need next year to reduce somehow the number of wasps starting the spring, since summer/autumn trapping didn't help enough
That is interesting. Sounds like the plants couldn't support that many clusters. Lots of people have commented about the benefit of thinning. Wasps can be a hassle, especially in a bad year. Hope earlier trapping helps for you.
The numerous year-old propagated cuttings might be a novel item to share with anyone ambitious enough to try growing them. More people growing that variety of grapes for more data, so long as they know what they're getting into.
I suspect that some of the issues you had may be related to the pot growing. I grow two of the varieties you have here in Dublin and have had no issues with them at all but they are planted in the ground.
Hi Bruce! Great flik. I think you can improve by improving your pruning and training method. Usually, best is to keep a short trunk in your context that might be as low as 40cm, on this you form a head, where all the fruiting branches start from. After harvest or better in late winter, you select 2 new branches close to the head which will be the fruiting branches of the season. One you will keep as a stub with 2-3 eyes, and the other as fruiting branch with 6-10 eyes. the longer branch you can be bent to train it along a horizontal support as soon as you move the bags in (that might even mean you want to keep your trunk higher in such a way that you have clearance below for other crops like papers etc.). From there the grapes will form close to this branch and new growth will need some support to keep it up and away from the fruits. Training the fruiting branch horizontally, helps to keep fruit from rotting since the vines will hang down helping airflow while you lead the leafy part up. remove leafs the that prevent airflow around the fruits. you can also keep 3 branches, but then you might keep them shorter since your bags might limit nutrition. Any new growth from the trunk needs to be removed during growing season. After harvest, the fruiting branch(es) are removed. 2-3 new branches close to the head (ideally from the short stub branch) are kept for the next year. See here for Figures (Abb 1 and Abb 2) in bags you might want to stick to the variant of Abb 1. www.rebschule-schmidt.de/de/reben-richtig-schneiden.html
Good to know for next time, thanks. This year, I just wanted to increase the chance of success, and was looking for a chance to try the stuff. Now that I think of it, I should have tried some with and without the hormone 🤷🏼
I don't know about Ireland, but here in France, all European (Vitis vinifera) grape varieties are sold grafted to an American grape rootstock. This is because European grapes are sensitive to phylloxera, which is a root aphid that destroyed all grapevines in France when it was imported from America. So depending on if there is Phylloxera in your area, you might have a bad surprise with your cuttings. Hopefully, it is not around 🫰
Hopefully it is not around! I think this might be one of the benefits of growing a plant that normally doesn't grow in the region, we don't have the pests and diseases.
We plant roots outside polytunnel and train the vines inside . Saves alot of work and watering and the plants prefer it.
My neighbour has a plant like that, and grows very well. Takes over half his polytunnel though!
@@REDGardensit’s really up to you how much you let the plant grow. Most of the plant doesn’t produce anything, so you can keep it as tidy as you want. If you grow them like the commenter wrote you may want to keep one single branch, in the style of a pergola and let the side shoots grow but not too much to keep it from shading too much the rest of the tunnel
0p00p00@@REDGardens
This is really interesting; I've never considered grapes as a perennial fruit crop, not wanting to permanently dedicate bed space to them, but I may have to give it a go in pots, now. Thanks for expanding my horizons once again, Bruce!
Cool! I was the same. It is interesting how a simple idea can open up the possibility of something! I am also growing peach trees in large pots, though I already killed one 😬
@@REDGardens Hmm. Fruit trees in pots. I'm familiar with the idea from the 17th Century French orangeries, but hadn't considered that for a small scale operation like mine. I have a brutal white tail deer population to contend with, too. I'm about 2.5 years from retirement, so soon I will have the time to explore such fascinating options! Thanks again, Bruce.
My father used to grow the Black Homburg variety in greenhouse in northern England with a similar climate to Ireland.
It was rooted into the ground, but with the roots trained outside the greenhouse so inside bed space could be used for other crops, and the leafy growth was trained inside along wires hanging from the roof.
He obtained prolific crops which he used for wine making.
He spent a lot of time thinning individual bunches of grapes, using long, narrow scissors to clip out individual grapes from each bunch - around one in three grapes were removed, I think - to allow the remainder to swell but also to reduce the risk of rot and fungal problems. Pruning back leaf growth was a constant task, too.
Ventilation was important, also to reduce rot. Because of the root run being external he could simply turn a tap on a water butt or hose to irrigate just the grape, and water run off from the roof of the greenhouse also fed the grape roots directly.
The vine thrived for several decades (until my dad grew too old to properly care for it) and the wine was always good and plentiful! However, it was very labour intensive.
I have seen a similar approach in a friend's tunnel. Very useful keeping the roots outside!
@@REDGardens I've got a similarly planted black hamburg and this year, I ended up in hospital during May and june. I ended up with such a large crop, I was worried about it all coming tumbling down .I ended up with 80 kilos of grapes. All because I couldn't prune this year
i follow the wisteria method of pruning
I hope this becomes a series, i would like to see all the challenges and how you overcome them. One thing is that according to expert growers, grape vines are often grafted because there is a pest that most varieties cannot withstand, i think thats one of the things you should look into if you are going to do cuttings and make your own new plants from branches.
I am really interested in the possibilities of grafting, but wanted to try out the native roots first. One of the strange benefits of growing a crop outside of it's natural climate seems to be that some of the pests a diseases don't exist there ... yet. Like the dreaded squash bug doesn't exist here, because the plants it lives off don't grow well here. I a hoping this will be the same with grapes.
Now I didn't expect this but I find it interesting. I wouldn't call myself an expert in this area but I do grow my own vineyard which produces wine grapes from which actual wine is made. It's a really, really small vineyard but as it's not my main source of income, it's enough for me. Anyway, I think I can give some short tips on the subject as, related to what you have said in the video, I have also learnt some things from you over time.
- I would have never thought of growing it in a polytunnel, but grapes need a certain amount of hours a year over 10 ºC (or so) so they are in their prime to eat/make wine. I guess Ireland surely has a harsh weather for this to happen, therefore your experiment makes sense in a way. The main problem? humidity and the lack of ventilation. Grapes are very susceptible to fungus infections such as mildew. Some more than others, and it seems that's what you had in the ones that went bad early in the season. The ones at 06:59 definitely look like mildew, actually "latent mildew". Short version: mildew first shows up on the leaves like an oily stain. If not treated immediately (and I mean immediately, as we say here: if you see it, it's already late) it may leave you with no yield depending on the variety. Even if treated, it may not show in the leaves anymore but it may surely show up in the grapes when they are still green. Mildew has a hard time infecting grapes after veraison (when grapes ripe and get their color) but still.
If you are not applying any treatment (with Mildew you have to act before it shows up) your fate depends on a rather warm environment but the least humidity possible but also sunny. I mean, it's a fungus so whatever is bad for fungae is likely good for your grapes.
- Pruning... to me it's an art, as I haven't seen two people pruning the same way in my life, not event my parents did it the same way, which made it harder for me to learn. I would first and foremost tell you to read about "respectful pruning". If you do that, there's not much more that I can add. The thing is that your cuts should always be on one side so the sap can flow on the other one. Also, don't cut too close to where it will stem next year, as dissecation will affect the plant in that part.
- Green pruning is important. When the plant is "waking up" around April, you should remove any new grow that doesn't come out from the branches that the plant grew the year before, as they won't give you any fruit at all (and if, by chance, they do, it won't be worth it at all). You should only leave them if you're thinking of making a new branch for next year, but that's something to learn when you read about "respectful pruning".
- Cutting the lead is something that is actually done as well, sometime around late June, first half of July. Grapevines tend to grow the lead and not in "wide", but as soon as you cut the lead, the "side leads" will start to grow as well. That's what you're experiencing.
- Watering... that's tricky. It's nice if you water it in Spring and the very early summer, but you should also not water it too much or not at all in late July or August (mind you, they're in a pot and not on soil, so this may vary a little) as the plant will try to keep on growing instead of riping it's graps. It may sound counterintuitive but watering it may work against you in summer.
-There's a "trick" to know whether you're watering too much in that time of year: if the lead looks like a curve, such as the ones at 03:50, they are growing. If they don't look like that, the plant has stopped growing, and that's what you want in the weeks before harvesting. If you watter them "too much", they might restart their growth.
- The way you are leaving one "trunk" may work, but I suggest you try what we call a "vase" structure, that is, the plant grows any number of "trunks" from 2 up to 4 (generally speaking) and each of those "trunks" has a couple or three new grows left each year. If Spanish is not a problem, or even if it is, there are lots of videos on the subject here on youtube. Just by watching the videos you may learn a lot. Just search for terms such as "poda" (pruning) "formación" (formation) "poda en vaso".
Sorry for such a long comment but, still, this is just a "line" in a whole book of what can and should be done with grapevine.
Thanks so much for all that information. Very useful , especially abouthe pruning and the fungal issues. And the watering. And the lead looking like a curve. So much to observe and learn! 😁
@@REDGardens you're welcome, my pleasure to help in a way. Now that I've read myself again, I'd add to the "watering before harvest" that you don't also want your plants to die, there's a balance you have to achieve and having them inside a greenhouse in pots is something completely different and new to me, so that's something for you to experiment with time. Mind you, vines tend to have a rather big main root, not too long but strong, and lots of smaller roots that prospect as far as they can, which mean several meters around and also vertically. So, having them in a pot may seem not the best for their growth unless you keep them "relatively small".
Again, I'm no expert. It's just that I've lived my whole life in one of the "wine countries" in Spain so, want it or not, I've learnt it along the way, but different growers do things differently, so you have a lot, and I do mean a lot, to research if you want to.
Good luck and I'm looking forward next year to see what you get.
@ That makes sense to reduce watering when the grapes are developing. I have heard the same with later stages of growth for tomatoes, to make the fruit sweeter and more flavourful. Yes, I think there is a LOT of potential learning ahead, including the watering at different stages of development, and how the very constrained root ball changes things.
If you want to grow grape in a pot you should prune it like a little tree with 3 or 4 branches. Fruits grow from a one year branch. Your plants seem to have huge leaves.
Yeah, the leaves do seem big!
What Tommaso said essentially replicates the way grapes are pruned also in the vineyards, where there’s an old stump with either one or two branches from the previous year left about a meter long attached to the bottom wire of the trellises. From there a lot of vegetation grows above those two branches but the fruit is always to be found growing from the one year old branches. all the rest is pruned a couple of times over the aummer to keep the plants tidy and then in the winter they are pruned back again to just the stumo and one or two branches
I've propagated tons of grapes, I would have put those cuttings about 80 percent buried in the medium in a much deeper pot. They're easy to start, I just leave mine outside all winter in our Oregon climate, similar to yours. I'm afraid yours will dry out with so much exposed.
Thanks for the tips! WIll keep an eye on them.
You can wrape the bunch of grape with a very cheap bag of special paper, you can found it on internet. Or just put some bags of insect net around the bunches. Here in Spain is a common way to solve the insect problem in grapevine, if you have a home garden. Liked the idea of pots, thanks so much!
Thanks, I’ll have to try that next year.
I grew grapes the last few years, they are wonderful
Great video. One small note. I learned on a pruning course that it is best to always prune with the "sharp part" of your pruning shears towards the plant. That way you get a cleaner cut and there is less chance of fungus getting into the wound.
Sounds like good advice, thanks.
Grapes contain powerful antioxidants, such as flavonoids and resveratrol, which help protect cells from damage caused by free radicals, potentially lowering the risk of chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.
Excellent video as always!
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Boskoops Glorie is very popular in The Netherlands. It can withstand cold, it grows abundantly, propagates very well and you have to make a real effort of neglect to have it die on you (when planted in the ground). That said, it might be a good idea not to cut off large parts of a grape trove, but, instead, to 'thin' the trove. This means removing the smallest grapes to create more space for the larger one's to grow even larger and also to create space for air flow.
Good luck next season!
Thanks for a very interesting video.
Hopefully, Bob Flowerdew and other experienced grape growers will get in touch after seeing your video.
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I grow with a small community of people in an old greenhouse, we have a grape vine that is around a decade old now and I have learned a couple things about grapes since I've been there that might help you:
1. It is normal for them to send out a looot of side shoots in the summer. this summer we had to prune ours multiple times to keep on top of it.
2. A very experienced grower in his 80's told me that ideally you want to thin out the bunches, ie take the weaker bunches off and take parts of the good bunches out too. (seems like you did something similar)
3. This year we also had problems with mould/grapes rotting. we think it was due to the weather but also a sprinkler we were using nearby to water other crops which happened to also be getting the grapes wet. that was mostly a mistake on our part as last year we had a lovely crop however I think it is a bit weather reliant and I think thinning the grapes probably helps with that!
I dont know about growing them in containers and how much to feed them as ours is in the ground and well established but this was a very interesting video and makes me want to give it a try myself.
Thanks for the feedback!
Will be giving this a try.
😁 Hope it works for you.
Hi, the brown spots on the leaves and the rotting grapes are caused by the same fungus, called black rot.
To reduce it's impact, you can try to increase air flow through the plant, and remove any affected grape or leaf as soon as they appear.
But in my experience it's impossible to get rid of it completely without fungicide (I live in south-western France and my grapes are climbing on a south facing wall and I still get black rot and both powdery and downy mildew).
The best "organic" way to control it is to spray with a copper fungicide, although it is no great for the soil as it accumulates over time.
I am now trying to grow some disease resistant varieties which are crossed with american grapes. I suggest you could add a few resistant ones to your collection for next year!
Good to know, thanks!
red gardens project video day! It's a good Day!
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Great video. Thanks very much 👍
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yep thanks will have a go at this ;)
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I ENJOY ALL YOUR VIDEOS -- Ray Delbury Sussex County NJ USA
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Wonderful! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Thank you for sharing this information.
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Just want to say grape work Bruce! Not much to contribute to the discussion here, but want to keep the almighty algorithm happy ;)
Thanks for that! 😂
If your varieties are seedless, you have to apply gibberiline during flower stage, so that a bigger stem will allow space on the stem for growth. A very crowded arrangement needs planned plant protection during early growth.
I didn't know that, but something to look into, thanks.
I share your pain when the blackbirds have eaten all the grapes when you weren't watching, I'm thinking to build a scarecrow to dissuade them here. Cheers from a South Australian Spring!
It was really disappointing! If I had a big crop it probably wouldn't matter, but with so few clusters, loosing so much so quickly was frustrating!
@@REDGardens did they come into the PT to eat them?
I will personally plant them in potatoe buckets (30 l one's) and try using water with bicarbonate soda and few drops of oil against fungal disease. Good luck and thank you for an inspiration.
Hadn't heard of the bicarbonate soda and oil thing.
incredible!
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There is also a few outdoor vineyards here in ireland that are producing theyre own wine! Wicklow Way Wines is one.
That is so cool that vineyards are developing in Ireland!
I only put my first one in this year so can't offer any advice, apart from the RHS is a good initial resource so try there. I put mine in the traditional way, with the roots outside and the vine inside. I'm hoping to train it along the roof of the PT on the North side so it doesn't shade the other plants in there.
My neighbour uses that method. The plant takes up a lot of space, and I think they could do a lot more pruning, but there are usually a lot of grapes! Hope it goes well for you.
Grapes are one of the most difficult things to grow. I live in Italy in an area which is essentially the heart of the wine region of the north west. Everywhere I go I see hills covered with vineyards, so I tried growing a couple of seedless grapes to make dried raisins for the winter and for cooking. However so far I had no luck growing them. I don’t want to apply any chemicals to my vegetable garden, not even what here everyone sprays which is a mixture of copper and sulfur, allowed also in organic farming. Each year I lost the crop to either fungal diseases or even worse parasites diseases. Eventually I gave up completely to the idea I had to grow grapes all above my tomato trellises to provide shade to the tomatoes over the hot summers we have been having over the past decade. I thought it was a perfect combination and instead for the first time this year I had fungal disease spread from the grapes to the tomatoes losing a handful of plants early in the season when we had more rain than usual. This fall I am removing the plants, which I have cut back to a stump after all those diseases appeared in June. I’m giving up on this experiment. Will need to find another vegetable to use as a climbing shade for the tomatoes. I may even try with pumpkins, who knows 😅 wish me luck!
That is tough. I have come to suspect that if you try to grow a crop that is very common in the area, you will end up with all of the diseases and pests, and they are 'endemic' in the area. I think that is one of the reasons I have been more successful with a few crops like squash and grapes, as there aren't the diseases and pests specific to this plants present in the landscape, as so few people grow them, and there aren't native plants of the same family. We have the opposite here with potatoes, as there is so much blight around it is hard to grow the susceptible varieties.
Hope you have success with the crops next year!
interesting. I always assumed our climates were very similar, even tho I am on the other side of the 'BIG POND!' My neighbor, about 1/2 mile away has a vineyard for wine grapes. And not far away are other vineyards. (hour's drive, etc). Not to mention, there are plenty of dessert grape growers. For now, I am focusing on my next step on fruit such as some apple, pear, ad blueberry. It is, however, a dream(?) to consider grapes.
Yeah, sounds like quite a different climate. I know a few people with grapes on the 'sunny east coast' of Ireland, but none in the rest of the country. Some people have success in a warm micro climate, like up against a south facing wall.vToo windy and cool for most varieties, but that seems to be changing.
I don't think taking cuttings like this will work for long enough. At least here in Austria we aren't even allowed to do that with Vitis vinifera, because the introduced Phylloxera and the false mildew will end them sooner or later. It seems that some might be crosses between the fox grape, Vitis labrusca, so that might work with some of them. I don't think only mainland Europe is infested by them tbh. Lovely video!!!!!!!!
Thanks. That is interesting. Something to keep an eye on.
Thank you very much for this 🍇 growing video. I'm from Scotland and trying to grow three 🍇 varieties outside without any knowledge and still unsuccessful. Bindu
Hope you can find a way to have a successful harvest!
I have definitely not been doing the right things. I do little to my poly tunnel grapes and get quite a few grapes. I think that I need to feed them but have had small size grapes, I now have quite a lot of grape jelly. I harvest in September. My property is a bit farther North than the Red Gardens.
Birdy
Lots of poepel comment about the thinning the clusters helping to increase the grape size.
Grapes tend to have shallow surface roots and deep taproots im a winemaker and work with wine grapes, grapes are particularly vulnerable to potassium deficiency and you need to maintain adequate levels of potassium.
thanks for the advice 🙂
i think it might be possible to grows them outside i have done in denmark wich hase a very simular climet meyby a litle less windy but still just let it grow its pritty big now and gives a fear few grapes
I think I will have to try outside as well!
Grapes either 'put on' their fruit at the beginning of last year's Cane or in the middle. Pruning back to just a few Nodes on a Cane that produces Fruit in it's center will offer no fruit.
It's either 'Cane' or 'Cordon and Spur' pruning.
Bruce... meet Tom:
ua-cam.com/video/HBHApvOj8rc/v-deo.htmlsi=_S4utLwFAM5BAmrl
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Love your content!!!
Thanks for the link.
Grape thinning is really important. I’m still learning but it stops the early rot and produces larger grapes
Yeah, that is something I want to pay more attention to next year.
@@REDGardens My best bunches were nearly 40-50% thnned. I think that if I start as soon as the flowers set next year I might not have to thin out ANY bunches at all as thinning has the same effect
I'm continental EU, so i can grow grape in soil, but do to various reason ( altitude/colder winters and testing a more heat loving variety) i grew as test one in a 75l container on the patio . I didn't prune that much like you (maybe should have), this year had around 15-20 clusters, but individual fruits were small, like a pea ( should watered more ? ) But the biggest problem , which is unrelated to being in pots : all were eaten by wasps :( Same with the earlier varieties in soil. Need next year to reduce somehow the number of wasps starting the spring, since summer/autumn trapping didn't help enough
That is interesting. Sounds like the plants couldn't support that many clusters. Lots of people have commented about the benefit of thinning. Wasps can be a hassle, especially in a bad year. Hope earlier trapping helps for you.
The numerous year-old propagated cuttings might be a novel item to share with anyone ambitious enough to try growing them. More people growing that variety of grapes for more data, so long as they know what they're getting into.
Good idea. I should propagate some more!
The rot surprised me. The leaves were growing so much higher than the grapes, giving plenty of circulating air.
I think it was because there is so little wind in the polytunnels most of the time, and higher humidity
I suspect that some of the issues you had may be related to the pot growing. I grow two of the varieties you have here in Dublin and have had no issues with them at all but they are planted in the ground.
I think you are right. Container growing does change things.
Hi Bruce! Great flik. I think you can improve by improving your pruning and training method. Usually, best is to keep a short trunk in your context that might be as low as 40cm, on this you form a head, where all the fruiting branches start from. After harvest or better in late winter, you select 2 new branches close to the head which will be the fruiting branches of the season. One you will keep as a stub with 2-3 eyes, and the other as fruiting branch with 6-10 eyes. the longer branch you can be bent to train it along a horizontal support as soon as you move the bags in (that might even mean you want to keep your trunk higher in such a way that you have clearance below for other crops like papers etc.). From there the grapes will form close to this branch and new growth will need some support to keep it up and away from the fruits. Training the fruiting branch horizontally, helps to keep fruit from rotting since the vines will hang down helping airflow while you lead the leafy part up. remove leafs the that prevent airflow around the fruits. you can also keep 3 branches, but then you might keep them shorter since your bags might limit nutrition. Any new growth from the trunk needs to be removed during growing season. After harvest, the fruiting branch(es) are removed. 2-3 new branches close to the head (ideally from the short stub branch) are kept for the next year. See here for Figures (Abb 1 and Abb 2) in bags you might want to stick to the variant of Abb 1. www.rebschule-schmidt.de/de/reben-richtig-schneiden.html
Ok, thanks. Sounds interesting, though not sure I understand all the points you detail. Something to explore! 😁
Just a heads up, grape cuttings dont need rooting hormone. They root very easily without it
Good to know for next time, thanks. This year, I just wanted to increase the chance of success, and was looking for a chance to try the stuff. Now that I think of it, I should have tried some with and without the hormone 🤷🏼
Himrod looked good. until you cut those beautiful bunches in half.
Just seemed too many!
I am shocked that we con grow grapes here...... they are ok
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I don't know about Ireland, but here in France, all European (Vitis vinifera) grape varieties are sold grafted to an American grape rootstock. This is because European grapes are sensitive to phylloxera, which is a root aphid that destroyed all grapevines in France when it was imported from America.
So depending on if there is Phylloxera in your area, you might have a bad surprise with your cuttings. Hopefully, it is not around 🫰
Hopefully it is not around! I think this might be one of the benefits of growing a plant that normally doesn't grow in the region, we don't have the pests and diseases.