Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Managing Weeds, Grass and Mulches in a vineyard

Hi grape growing friends,
The 1st of September is the start of Spring here down south, and for the friends in the northern hemisphere, the start of Fall.  Most of my vineyards just started showing signs of bud break and new life, with new leaves popping up everywhere.  A brand new growing season on hand and most of the vineyards already [...]

How to use a refractometer when growing grapes

Hi friends,
I hope you are having a wonderful week! 
With this article, I want to reply to an email I received from Suzanna, one of the subscribers of My Grape Vine.  Suzana became a member way back in 2007 when I first started the website and blog and established a great looking vineyard.  Her question is [...]

Growing Grapes In A Pot

Hi dear grape growing friends.
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.  After the previous blog post, I received quite a few emails about planting distances and row directions, but one that often pops up is the question about growing grapes in a pot. 
As I said in an earlier blog post; to grow grapes in a pot, is [...]

Planting distances and row distances for grape vines

Hi grape growing friends,
With the Soccer World Cup fever at it’s highest here in South Africa, and my farm workers on annual vacation leave, I took some time off with my family as well.  I traveled to a few places aroud our beautiful country and just enjoy all the visitors to South Africa and the great football.  I hope some [...]

Grape Vine Grafting Video

Hi friends,
With this article I want to talk about grape vine grafting.  This is quite a common question among new grape growers.  The reason I think why so many people want to know how to do grafting, is because they planted the wrong variety when they started out.
Deciding on the right grape variety to grow [...]

Growing Grapes - Jaques’ vineyard

Hi grape growing friends.
It’s been a while since I posted on my blog, because I took a short break after the harvest season.  Well, I’m back with some new posts and some new tips on growing grapes.
Those of you who have followed my blog posts since last year, will remember that I uploaded some pictures of [...]

The Key Elements To Growing Grapes

Hi grape growing friends.
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend - mine sure is great
How many times have you wondered what the key elements for having a great vineyard are? 
This is really an important questions, as there is much more to growing grapes, than simply putting a cutting into the soil, watering it and [...]

Pruning a grape vine - where does is come from and why do we need to prune a grape vine?

Pruning grapes date as far back as 1876, when French viticulturists trimmed their grape vines to keep them in shape, as they grew older.  They learned that without pruning, their grape vines grow out of hand and produce smaller crops, with lower grape quality as years go by.
 
They developed a pruning method, where only a [...]

Growing Grapes - Grape Bunch Sizing

With this article, I will discuss an important part of preparing the grape bunches for harvest.  We are about 3 weeks away from starting to pack our first Flame Seedless grapes, and although we had a hard time thinning out the bunches, the crop size an quality at this stage is excellent.
Bunch sizing, as mentioned before, [...]

Layering a grape vine - update.

Those of you who were subscribed to My Grape Vine a year ago, will probably remember the article I wrote on the 30th of September 2008, about layering a grape vine - where you take a cane from an existing grape vine, to establish a new one.
This is a neat little trick you can use, if [...]