5th year grape vine...no grapes!

[semigreenthumb]

I've had a grape vine for 5 years and still has not produced any grapes. I've tried a variety of prunning techniques from heavy to light. Any suggestions?

[opabinia51]

The trick that I have heard and use is to prune the vines to the third bud each fall.

I tend to like to have really rich and healthy soils around all my plants but, I've heard that grapes like the poorest soil possible.

Any other ideas out there?

[semigreenthumb]

Well the vines are in a mixture of clay and topsoil (but mostly clay). Lots of new shoots already. Should I leave them all or prune some back?

[ynot]

I've had a grape vine for 5 years and still has not produced any grapes. I've tried a variety of prunning techniques from heavy to light. Any suggestions?

I don't know your location, But thismay help.

If not, Continue your search here.

Good luck.

ynot

[Coneflower]

I think I just had dumb luck with our grape vines. I bought three varieties a few summers back and planted them all rather close to one another alongside a chain link fence. The fence runs East and West and gets a good deal of sunshine. I have done nothing much to assist these grapevines. They have grown along the chain link fence about 20 feet now. We had a few grapes the first year, more last year and this year the vines were loaded. We have Red, Concord and White/Green grapes. I wish I had planted all Concord as I love the taste of those.

We did nothing to fertilize them. I dug up a small bed when I planted them about 4 feet x 1.5 foot. I used some compost I purchased from a local compost recycling place to amend the soil. That was about all I did for them.

I didn't water them any more than the usual rain fall at any time. I have a few other viney plants that love that side of our house that all need seperating because they're choking each other out.

I can't tell you what the success quotient was with our vines. I've never pruned them at all. I know in a span of about 10 feet my son and I picked over 5 gallons of grapes this year - just on one side of the fence.

Now if I could only have the same results with our plum tree!!! That gave us fruit the first year on a tiny sized tree - my son picked off all the plums when they were tiny the second year - none and now none this year. Sniffle.

[Coneflower]

I went out today and noticed I still have quite a lot of grapes left on my vines. Some are near the top rail of the fence so they're a little harder to get off the vine. I'm including a picture of the "base" of the grape vines and some of the grapes. Yummy! They are delicious. I can't take credit for knowing a thing about growing them. My neighbor growing up had a wild grapevine in the backyard and we used to eat so many sour grapes every season we'd get a stomach ache. When I went to a friend's home, whose mother was growing concord grapes I vowed someday I'd have my own concord grapevine. They are great eating! I do battle with a vine I think is Belladonna?? that grows among my grapes every year. It's a weak stemmed vine with little red berries. Easily broke off but seems to grow at record pace.