The message
from "Mike" contains these words:

When I were a wee lad, my father brought home a young vine and he had been
told the same thing. We had a large Victorian Conservatory which had a gap
of about 2 inches all round the bottom. He dug a hole on the outside, put a
dead rabbit in the bottom, don't ask, that's what he was told to do, covered
that with some soil and then planted the vine, bringing the vine under the
side walls and then trained it up and under the roof. Masses of leaves, and
quite a bit of fruit, nothing special.

The French advocate a dead donkey. (It supplies slow-release phosphates.)

Much later I bought a house which also had a Conservatory , this too had a
vine planted in the same way. Tons of leaves, tons of very very small
grapes, many of which went mouldy before being ready to eat.

Hmmmm.

Hopefully, some more experienced Vine Gardeners will point out what was
wrong with our vines so you don't make the same mistakes. Toooooooooo many
leaves. Tooooooooooo small grapes. Mould.

Yes. Too much nitrogen - mulch with grass cuttings or straw. Maybe not
enough water, and almost certainly not enough ventilation. Grapes don't
like too much humidity.

Also, you need to get a good book on viticulture, which will tell you
how, where and when to prune and thin. This is important.

As a rule of thumb, in the late winter, early spring (before the buds
start to burst) prune off all the secondary laterals, leaving a good
full bud, and rubbing out any weedy ones, so you are left with just the
structure of the vine.

When the flowers appear, count three or four leaves after it, then
remove the growth beyond there. Any laterals with no flowers, remove.
Remove also any new shoots from the stem which you don't want to train
into new laterals.

Then, if you're really finnicky, and are thinking of showing your
grapes, grapes may be thinned out from the bunches when they are small.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
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