Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Winter grape pruning-it is time

Two weekends ago we found an unseasonably sunny and warm afternoon, making it my favorite time to prune our grapes. We started off with the arbor that is on our southern exposure adjacent to the garage. We were apparently fairly lazy last year and neglected to do a thorough grooming of these four grapes. Consequently there was a mat of deadwood with the last year growth above it. We gave it a thorough beating back and hopefully new growth will be encouraged. I'll always worry that we over prune the grapes and each time spring rolls around I am again reminded that they do survive.