Hi all, I am hoping someone can give me some advice about grapes. We have a grape in the greenhouse which grew like mad last year - it's first year. We pruned it and this year it's gone off like a rocket again and I am very excited to see lots of little tiny grapes. Do I just leave it alone or should I remove some of them or what? Any advice appreciated as we're very excited about the possibility of home grown grapes and don't want to blow it totally if we can avoid it! :D
Thanks
If you want proper sized grapes, you have to cut off all leaves beyond the bunch, and again when it regrows... cut out a lot of bunches to about 1 per foot of cane... and then cut out half of the small grapes to let the others swell.
Seedless ones don't need such ruthless thinning, as you don't get a mouthful of pip..
8)
It depends how you are training your vine. But if you have one main stem which you are training around your greenhouse. Then for every branch that comes off the main shoot allow only one bunch of grapes per branch. Nip the growing tip off each branch when you have a bunch of grapes on each branch and say 5 or 6 leaf sections. Otherwise a lot of the nutrients will go to the growing tip rather than your bunch of grapes.
Also I wouldn't let the main stem grow all summer long, when you think you have ample bunches of baby grapes formed nip the growing tip off the main stem.