On Mon, 10 May 2004, Tim Nicholson wrote:

As a newcomer to the delights of grapevines, could someone help me out
please? I've read here and elsewhere that vines usually flower before
providing grapes. If so, are these the flowers, because they look like
'baby' grapes to me....

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-...apes-small.jpg

Not able to see your picture, but I would say that it's a little early
for grapes to be forming. Therefore what you can see are probably the
flower buds. Flowering usually takes place in June/July but then
everything is early this year. My vines are only just putting out the
tightly packed flower trusses.

I think I've got some photos of vine flowers somewhere so if you email
me your email address I'll send them to you.

Thanks in advance - I'll be back later for a quick couse on vine
pruning!

Don't try to do any pruning at the moment! If you cut into ripe wood
it'll bleed profusely. And it's probably a bit too early to be pruning
back the new growth. However what you can do profitably now is to remove
any new growth that either doesn't have any flower truss or isn't needed
for further training of the vine.

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