Pruning

This weekend we pruned and pruned and pruned!

We pruned the suckers off our apple tree's and we pruned the chaos that were our grape vines.

Before

When pruning grape vines there are a few rules to follow. First, you want two main stems coming out of of what looks like a a knot at the base of the plant. If there are any stems coming below that knot, take 'em off!

Then once you trim the small vines/stems and get more control of the plant, you should also look for a new growth stem and be sure you do not remove it. Therefore there should not just be 2x there should be 3x total stems. This is just for young plants. As they get older you will only keep 2x (or you can choose to do that now as well).

I always start small with the shoots/branches that are coming from the bigger vines. That helps to condense the amount of total vines you are looking at.

Previously we had only been keeping 2x stems. Be sure to also trim the shoots and branches from the vines because that will help production. If you have a lot of branches/shoots, they will "suck" the production out of your plant!

We then trained the vines on the wires and moved on to the next plant.

Pruned and trained vine with three stems

One tip for pruning- wear sun screen and a hat! We got so burnt even though it is April in Michigan!!

Hope you're looking forward to our wine as much as we are!