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Old 09-08-2013, 07:12 AM posted to rec.gardens
Jymesion Jymesion is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Aug 2013
Posts: 7
Default Out of control grape vine!

On Thu, 08 Aug 2013 10:12:18 -0700, "David E. Ross"
wrote:

On 8/8/13 2:38 AM, Jymesion wrote:


One thing I do need to know -- is it safe to just keep weaving it back
and forth across the trellis, or will that leave me with nothing but
bare trunks next year?


To control the vine during growing season, keep pinching the tips of
some branches and tying the others to the trellis.


So I should prune off the end of the stems and let them develop
branches?

So far, I've been pinching off everything and letting only the main
stems grow.

I hope your trellis is quite strong.


I cheated! I went to Lowe's and picked out the lumber and trellis and
various bits and bobs to put it all together, then I looked at the
pile. No one thing was very expensive, but it added up to a lot, and
it was going to be a semi-major project to put it all together..

Then I saw what would be easy -- a panel of porch railing. It's
basically two 4' 2x4s with 1 1/4 x 1 1/14 posts connecting them.

I only had to drill six holes, put it up against the window frame, and
drive in lag bolts (turned on it's side, it forms a ladder, and is the
exact width so the lag bolts go through the trim and into the wall
studs on either side of the window.

The only finicky bit was a board and spindles for the squirrels to
easily get around the gutter at the top of the wall.

It takes 2-4 years for a newly planted cutting to give fruit.


I never expect to get any grapes off it. I had some grape vines
trained against a fence about 30 years ago and lost most of the crop
to squirrels. I expect that problem to be much worse when the
grapevine is on their path to the feeder.

Thanks for the info!