Tag: pruning

Pruning Grapevines

Spring is here according to the calendar but not quite for a gardener and farmer in our neck of the woods.

What a tangled mess it wove!!

What a mess! I need to do some research on one end of this concord vine because it has had lots of new growth, huge leaves but no grapes. The other end just started producing two years ago and it’s a red grape. We have several arbors of grapes mostly blue and one small vine that wraps around our woodhouse that has wonderful white grapes every year. They’re not huge nor are the other grapes but they’re all super sweet. I also need to figure out how to get the grapes to grow bigger. All of them now are about the size of a marble. I want some about an inch around. Any suggestions?

Much neater than before.

I didn’t cut it back as far as I usually do because for some reason the last two years we got a huge amount of new growth and leaves but not many grapes. We’ll see if this thinning is better for grapes than years past.

Pruning Plum Trees

I’ve been adding fruit and nut trees to our farm for several years and so far, they’re doing well. We’ve added apple, peach, plum and cherries. Last year I even got some almond and chestnut trees going. The cherries are tart and this year I want to find some sweet black heart cherries. Hoping to start some peach and hazelnut this spring. All of the trees need to be pruned but we’ll start with the plum and grapes.

This is one of two red plum trees we have at one end of the garden.
The second as well as the first are in dire need of a proper pruning. They both were supposed to be green gage trees but their first blooming and producing proved that to be wrong. We got large red plums that are super sweet. Good but would have preferred the Green Gage. I’ll have to get some seed from my Aunt Carrie.
Eddie pruned one and I took the other one. My pruning was a bit more drastic than his. The trees are already full of buds and we will have freezing weather in March and April.
You can see the buds and the trees are loaded. I doubt we’ll get much fruit because February is not the usual budding time.

I just don’t understand what is going on with these crazy weather patterns. Ice and rain one week and the next rain and 50* – 70*. It just doesn’t make any sense and it’ll be a challenge to get any fruit in 2023.

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