Planting Grapes

Hi friends!

This past weekend we planted 798 grape vines! We planted Petite Pearl, Marquette and La Crescent grape vines. All of which were not bull vines. In the past, our first two vineyards were planted from bull vines of many different varietals including Riesling, Vidal and Cab Franc.

The new vineyard facing the new barn.

How did we plant these grapes? We planted 798 holes using our tractor and inserted metal poles for the wires. The holes were around 1 to 2 ft deep. You need a deep hole for the roots, as they are very long, longer than the plant is tall!

The holes we used to plant the grapes.

We then took the grape vines, lines them up so the shoots from the stem were matching where the posts and making a "V". That way we don't need to over train them to make sure they grow properly.


We placed the vine roots in the hole, making sure there are no "J" roots. This means that the roots were all going down and not bent coming back up towards the top. Slowly you start to push dirt into the holes to bury the roots until the hole is full. Once full, you compact the dirt down and make sure there is a crevice so that water can gather around the vine.

Vines typically do not need a lot of water later in life, but during the first summer they will need to be watered frequently. And immediately when you plant them you should water them.

Watering the grape vines with help from our furry friends.

One last tip; while planting be sure that the roots do not get dried out. You will need to keep them in a bucket of water if possibly. The holes should be dug relatively close to when you are planting to the deep soil is moist.


That is the latest development at Pleasant Valley Farm and Vineyard. We're excited to start bottling our white wines soon. We just tasted our Vidal and Riesling. SO GOOD! One of many things we have going on in the next few weeks. We have a few big weekends coming up, including our grand opening of our event venue May 28th!  Looking forward to posting more about that soon!

Thanks for reading! Please reach out to Pleasantvalleyfarmsmi@gmail.com with any inquiries into our products or event space!