Hi Steven, You might look at this page and the various pages it links to about grapes (http://cahe.nmsu.edu/ces/viticulture/publications.html). We have many grape varieties here in New Mexico, some of which date back to the early 1600's. I don't think the technique for training grapes to a trellis would be all that different from winery style, just a question of your pruning approach. In my experience (we had four vines at our previous home), grapes are extremely hardy and you would be hard-pressed to really damage them even if you hacked at them with a machete. When we first moved in, my wife cut a huge vine all the way back, leaving about three feet of trunk coming out of the ground. I was sure she killed it, but the thing couldn't have been happier and sprouted new arms like crazy come spring. Over the next 7 years, it came to entirely ring a 75 X75 garden fence with great yields every season.
We also had a neighbor that had a single grape vine that wound around the perimeter of their entire yard, including a dense trellis that shaded a patio. They had no real experience with grapes before - they just pruned haphazardly as they went along over the years and the plant was happy as could be. Their yield was eventually so high that every year they would invite neighbors to come with bags and buckets to cut their own and take home. It was fantastic and very attractive (and good for neighbor relations, too). Check out the above page, but I would say that its very hard to go wrong with grape vines once they are established. Good luck! Wade Patterson Director of Arts and Community Development Harwood - a creative center for community & the arts Visit our website at www.harwoodartcenter.org & sign up for our FREE Electronic Newsletter -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 1883 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20071204/70c21631/attachment.bin _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
