Growing Your Own Grapes for Winemaking

If you are really interested in winemaking but prefer to be able to use your own grapes there are things you must learn before you can plant your vines. First, you will need to see what grapes grow in the area where you live.  Then you must be prepared for it to take one to two years before there are any grapes that are worth picking.  As long as you have no problem with that you need only go to the nursery where you buy plants and look at what they have to offer. Make sure that the place you want to plant your grapes offers the vines what they need.

The trunk is the only permanent part to the vines, it stays where is grows from.  This is where the roots begin and they will establish themselves at anywhere from four feet deep to twenty feet deep, as the years go by. You want to be certain that wherever you plant the grape vines there’s nothing that will interfere with their root growth. They also must be planted where the sun shines as much of the day as possible. Do not put them somewhere where there will be a lot of shade. They won’t do well. Planting along a trellis will go a long way to improving the growth of the vines. They need somewhere to go. 

Be sure that the vines you buy are dormant, meaning they have not as of yet bloomed. You don’t want to plant something that has blossomed previously.  Make sure that they have lots of water without drowning them. They need to average an inch of water weekly. If there is not enough rain to give them that you should make sure you water them weekly. 

One very important practice in grape growing is the pruning. You will find that you cut back a lot of growth on your grape vines. This will seem extreme to you at times but if you do not cut a lot of it off you will grow too many grapes and the vines will not be able to support them properly. Hence lots of growth but little that can ripen.  Remember for each bud you leave you are not growing one grape but one bunch of grapes.

Weed control is another big issue for grape growing. You must be sure to regularly work to get rid of the weeds. It is better to do this by hand instead of using weed killers. Everything you put on your vines will eventually be inside of you. The same goes for fertilizer. Grape vines need to be fertilized but using something natural that comes from a compost or animal manure is better.

Looking at all that is required to grow grapes you may have decided that its too much work for not enough reward. If this is the case you can still make wine by buying the grapes or the concentrate from the same store you buy your winemaking equipment from.