New To Growing Grapes and Need Help

[Poet C]

Hi, folks. I have no idea what I am doing. I got a concord grape plant from tractor supply in February and planted it in the ground, it started to make fruit and flowers and I cut those off in April. I heard one year old and less, means not to let it produce, just train it. I have not trained it! Do I dig a post and run a wire? What should I do? How do you train it? I looked on youtube and googled but feel confused. I live in Houston Texas. I mulched it in April, have not pruned it, it was a stick with few leaves, now it is branching out these past months.

 

[Greg Corey]

Hi!

For your first year, you can just pound a stick/stake in the ground as long as it is about 4-6 feet tall. The first year is really, as you alluded to, about establishing the trunk.

Concord is generally quite vigorous so next year you'll want to do some training.

Do you want a traditional trellis system? Arbor? Fence? That will dictate how to train and there are loads of details about that and whether you choose top wire cordon, vertical shoot positioning, four arm kniffen etc don't matter too too much unless you want to get every last perfect cluster. Top wire cordon will require less summer work whereas vertical shoot positioning will require some summer training up to wires.

Let us know what else you'd like to do with the grapes and we can keep discussing!

 

[Jovimaple]

Welcome to WMT to you both!