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 not the ideal way of growing a grape vine, but I do understand that, in the city, available gardening space is limited,
I will try to give my opinion of what to do and how to manipulate the grape vine to stay under control on a stoop or balcony, but first, here is an email and pictures from Alex.
Dear Danie:
I found your website while doing some research on grape growing. I enjoyed your site, your newsletter and your “personal touch”.
Now for the rest of the story. I have always enjoyed gardening and my hobby for many years was growing exotic tropical fruit trees when I lived in a house in Hialeah, Florida. Now I live in an apartment in North Miami Beach, Florida but my love for plants has not diminished.
Last year on my way back from Europe, I bought a grape vine in upstate New York. I never had experience with grapes and did not know if they would even grow in Florida, but I wanted to try it anyways and of course, hoping for the best.
Last July I planted it in a large pot on my balcony. Unfortunately, I had to plant it on the North side of the property, so it doesn’t get the full sun. It only gets some sun it in the morning and in the late afternoon.
The variety that I planted is “MARS”. As you can see by the pictures, the vine is growing nicely and this year it has given me a small cluster.
Last year I did no trimming at all to the vine at all, because I had no knowledge of it and that is why I started researching. This year I will trim it, but I need your advice on what or how to do it.
It now has three or four canes coming off the main vine right at the pot about 10 inches from the soil as you can see on the photo.
I plan to cut all the canes off except for the biggest one so that it can become the main stem. Is this appropriate?
Also, I do not know if the rest of the vine should be pruned using the cane method or the bud method. Your comments on this will be greatly appreciated. Because of the space limitation, I plan to prune it to where it only has 3 or 4 canes growing on the wires I have placed between the uprights on the balcony.
When would be the best time of the year for me to do this trimming? Also, since I am brand new at grapes, I do not know when to pick the grapes that are now growing on the vine. How can I tell when they are ready to pick. Of course, this would be for table eating and not for wine making.
Again, I want you to know that I enjoy your newsletters and emailing with you and I thank you in advance for any help and information you can give me.
Alex
Okay friends, I will start by thanking Alex for the email and the pictures. As he rightfully said; his grape vine is doing great - there are no visible symptoms of diseases or anything out of the ordinary.
Let’s quickly have a look at the variety he chose: Mars is a black/blue seedless grape with big berries (for a seedless grape) and grows quite vigorously (as you can see from the picture). One known problem with Mars is, it takes some time to become productive – Alex, that is why you didn’t get any grapes last year, and only one bunch this year. However, as the variety grows older, it will produce more fruit (good news for Alex).
The grapes taste a bit assiduous, so it’s better to leave it on the vine until it has fully ripened and the berries are soft – normally about two to three weeks before Concord grapes ripen.
As for pruning: I did some research on the variety and found that, because of it’s vigour and fruitfulness later on, it is best to prune with spurs (bud pruning as Alex called it). Easier said than done?? 
Okay, let me try to explain what to do:
If it was my grape vine, I would move the vine to the middle of the balcony (luckaly it is in a pot!), right next to one of the middle pilars and split the vine to grow to both the left and the right.. Why?
When you look at the pictures, you will notice there is quite a long distance from the one side of the balcony to the other. The little light hanging from the roof indicates that that pilar is the middle of the balcony (right?). If you are to make a cordon or arm from one side of the balcony to the other side, it would be quite a long cordon! Remember, we must always try to keep the “old wood” on a grape vine as few as possible, as the sap flow to ripen canes and grapes and to feed the rest of the vine is much slower in old wood. The longer the cordon or arm, the further is it is away from the main stem and the slower the sap flow will be.
If you split the vine or in Alex’s case, use two of the existing canes to develop two arms (one to each side) on the middle wire, the distance for each arm from the main stem is only half the lenght it would have been – does this make any sence?
Because of the limited space Alex have, I would only devlop one arm to each side and prune spurs on the this arm. These spurs will be the fruit barers and the place where new shoots develop in the future. Remember that space is limited here and the vine will become too big for his balcony with more than one arm to each side. If however you have a more space, you can develop more than one arm to each side.
The initial training of a cane on this wire is done in summer and then in winter (early spring), you need to prune a single cane on each of the two wires. From these canes, shoots will develop and then in the next pruning season you can start to prune spurs from these shoots. (For those of you who are members of the Complete Grape Growing System, refer to the pruning and training section – year 1 and 2)
Here is a picture that will explain it in more detail.
I hope this will give you more ideas of what to do when you grow a grape vine in a pot.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Danie
Want to learn how to train and prune your grape vine the correct way?
Then join the hundreds of succesful grape growers using
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hello Danie,
hey thanks for emailing me your site means alot to me.
i wiil purchase your info on the right way to grow grapes this week on payday ok.
my dad just inherited over 1000 acres of vinyerd in genoua, ITALY FROM HIS DAD. MY DAD IS 80 YRS OLD AND HE JUST GOT IT 6 MONTHS AGO. WEIRD ….. SO I WANT TO LEARN EVEN THOUGH HE SELLING THE LAND. ILL BE KEEPING IN TOUCH THANKS FOR BEING THERE.
KEVIN ALESSANDRI
alessandri.granitebayscapes@gmail.com
p.s you live in SOUTH AFRICA WOW !!!
‘I LIVE IN GRANITE BAY, CA. , USA if you got this please email me let me know cause when i sent it it said error.
Hello Danie,
I am really very happy learning about grape production in the pots. Please tell me what is the ideal size of pot and qnty production from each vine and which variety is more suitable/adaptive for pot plantation. I was curious as vine reqires huge amount of nutriets.
Thank you Danie for your nice topic.
Regards,
Mohammed
Dear Danie, Thanks for this article! It was the most helpful because I am basically doing a similar one plant approach. My grape plant is outside, at the bottom of my porch, southern exposure.
I live in Franklin, North Carolina. I planted a Thompson seedless grape plant four years ago, spring 2007, and it never made it through the summer.
Then I tried a new Thompson plant in the spring of 2008. It struggled the first year. Last year it finally put out several
2 1/2 foot shoots that I supported with a few short metal plant supports. It has taken a long time to grow this year, and I had nothing to stake. It finally growth grew in a pile! Two weeks ago I realized it was ready for the big time! So I got four 6 foot plastic garden poles. I basically did what you said in this article. It is planted in the middle of a garden space 13 feet wide. I chose the two strongest vines, brought them up the two parallel center poles and out to the left and right. Each is on it’s own stake. Then connected the center poles to the outside poles with 1/4 inch nylon cord. Using plastic cable ties, I supported the vines up the center poles. Then gently wrapped the vines around the the cords toward the outside poles. They have now grown enough that they are wrapped around and are half way down the end poles. I plan to cut them when they reach about a foot from the bottom, and keep it that way.
There were about 4 other shoots that were small and I pruned them off, to allow the energy to go into the two main ones.
In the winter the vines have died back. Will these die? I really do not know what to do now. It took the plant a long time to start growing, and last August it developed something that I am told is probably a mold. It looked like fine white ice crystals covering everything (like after a frost) except it was the end of a very hot and muggy August. Just seemed to pop up quickly. That was the end of last year’s growth. I cut it all away except for the woody stems. I am told to spray it with a preventative anti fungal/disease spray.
By November the frost will be a factor, and freezes soon there after. Except for the woody stems about 1 foot high, the tender vines have died in the past.
Will these new vines become woody and revive? Or will I have to start over? Should I cover them for the winter with a plastic green house type enclosure? (Not touching the vines). Lost!
At least I did the right thing by planning to do the T shaped layout you talked about in the article! That made me feel very happy. I did not know the T layout would be so good for conserving the sap energy, it just seemed logical from a support point of view.
I am determined to have grapes for eating, but after four years and two tries with the Thompson plant… and I had another local variety of red grape plant I put in a large 15 inch planter last summer. It did not come back this year… I am guessing that because of the winter weather, I will only be successful with ground planted vines in NC. Not potted ones…??
I enjoy seeing photos of and hearing about your vineyard. Thanks for sharing your expertise with us novices!
Joani
Hi Danie,
Thanks for your encouraging mails for grape vine growers.
Before I find your advises to how to plant the grapes and in what intervals, I purchased 10 Swenson Red bare foot grapes from Cornhill Nursary located in New Brunswick ,Canada,( I live in Toronto) and in my backyard I have planted them as two per line( according to me available space) at a interval of 7 feet between the plants. But unfourtunately the intervals between the rows I have only 3 1/2 feet.
Now my question is can I leave it as it is or should I need to relocate the 2nd and the 4th lines so that the interval between the 1st, 3ed and the 5th lines will be 7 feet?
Next question is I planted them by the beginning of May and it is almost 75 days gone and the plants are grawing good. Is it ok to remove them very carefully and relocate or will it damage the plants?
Thanks Danie for your time and enjoy your life time as a helping person.
God bless
you, your family and your farm.
Kuna
Hello Danie
I still read and enjoy all your blog articles.The one i just received was very good on growing grapes in a pot.I would have liked to have read though a bit about fertilizing a pot planted vine and root developement in a pot.Perhaps the fellow in the article could do a follow up on your blog next year.
Best regards,Dan Gledhill
My purple grape is putting out two crops, this year. That’s the kind pf weather that we are having in San Diego, CA,USA
My seedleess Thompson is putting out vines all over the place, but, no berries ?????.
thank you, Danie.
Hi Danie
Some my Grapes ven are Seak, I not Control it, now I passed Rani Season, So it is very difficult for Grapes ven. Please inform me, Now what I do this season.
Hi Danie
Some my Grapes ven are Seak, I not Control it, now I passed Rani Season, So it is very difficult for Grapes ven. Please inform me, Now what I do this season.
Thanks
Nurus Salam
Dhaka
Bangladesh.
dear dani I need to order your book but i culd not fined the way cause my location is not mentioned in your order form , it is (syria).thank you
Thanks for the pot suggestions. I feel for Norm in SD. The weather in Arizona this year has turned very hot and humid where I live. I have 3 Zinfandel vines I wanted to plant this season, but did not get the ground ready in time, so they are in pots in the greenhouse, and have some clusters, under the cooling unit! Say, I forgot how to access my online copy of Complete Grape Growing System, can you remind me how to get back to it!
hello danie, thanks for all the info you send on growing grapes please keep me on your mailing list i only have afew young vines but they are doing great after learning what what to do and being patent hope your having a great summer . sitting and waiting in tyler,tx
I assume that you meant SNAIL MAIL address. On your drawings,
I’m guessing that the green dots are the BUDS that will grow into spurs & these will grow HOW LONG ??
Then, the following winter, I cut these spurs back to HOW LONG ??
8 or 10 inches ??
These should then put on grapes or just MORE spurs ??
Do I keep cutting these back every year ??
We watched your 2 videos about putting buds on old root-stock. We really enjoyed that. It lost me in spots. But I really got lost when they showed the grapevine, all pruned to literally nothing. It looked totally NAKED.
Is this what my vines are suppose to look like every year after my winter pruning ??
If it is….. WOW !! I’m totally lost after that.
We really enjoy reading your newsletters. My friend & I are retired & we share your book with 2 other people. But being old, we are pretty slow at understanding thing, so please bare with us when we ask stupid questions. And thank you for understanding.
Phil & Pete & Mary & Christi
Hello Danie,
My father-in-law gave me an Amish fertilizer recipe used on their grapevines here in Kentucky. I was told to use 1 cup of Bone Meal, 1 cup of Lime, and 1 cup of Canning Salt. I was further instructed NOT to mix the 3 but to dig 3 seperate holes surrounding the vine and put the 3 ingredients seperately in the 3 holes. It sounded odd to me, but the Amish do have very good fruits and veggies so I tried it. My new vines have grown at a very good rate and are “running” down the trellis I built for them.
The recipe could likely be mixed and used in a smaller quantity if growing in pots.