Tips on How to Grow Grapes


Are you curious how to grow grapes and make wine in your own backyard? The process may be complex, but the project itself is quite easy if you follow the directions. It takes time, patience and learned skill.  You put those three things together and you will be amazing your friends and family with your first bottle of your own signature wine.

The first thing you need to know in your quest for information on how to grow grapes is the:

Basic tools of your craft. 

  • Gloves
  • Shovel
  • Pruning shears
  • Buckets
  • Bird netting
  • Fertilizer
  • Trellis
  • String
  • You will also need a few more materials
  • Soil
  • Water
  • Rootstock

Tips for choosing your rootstock (grape plant)

  • Home and patio growing grapes should be of the same type
  • Small vineyards have an optimized size of 5-20 acres. Bigger than that and you need help
  • Home sized vineyards should be less than two acres and the grape variety should be the same
  • Go to your local nursery as they will carry the grape plants that grow best in your climate and soil.  These are also easier to buy and more readily available
  • You should find a grape rootstock that has the minimum temperature it can survive as the lowest temperature that your climate normally gets.  Grapes don’t grow well in frigid climates. Anything less that 25 F can damage your plant

Location, Location, Location

  • Pick your location like it was the most important thing you will do
  • Know your soil and the limits of your temperature
  • Know your growing season, the longer the season the better
  • Grapes need lots of water but don’t grow well standing in it
  • Grapes love the sun
  • Ph of your soil is important. It should be between 6 and 6.5
  • When you purchase your rootstock and are not planting right away, put the roots into water.  If the roots dry out they will die
  • Planting time is early spring just past the freeze
  • Grape roots grow deep make sure the soil is churned
  • Grape plants should be planted be 6-8 feet apart
  • You dont need to know how to make a trellis to know how to grow grapes, but it probably does help as it will make it more your own.  You can buy one made and learn to train your grapes to grow on it so they produce in more abundance.

To learn how to grow grapes you need some precious tips:

  • Place netting over the vines to help keep pests away
  • To harvest, cut the grape bunches off the vine with pruning shears
  • A healthy vine will have dark green dark green
  • Do you pruning when the season is dormant, usually wintertime
  • Prune! If you don’t prune your grapes will be small and less abundant
  • Know the pests and diseases that will attack your vines and take care of them early
  • One acre will contain about 700 plants and each plant will produce about 10 pounds of grapes

As you can see learning how to grow grapes covers a lot of territory and you will have to know and learn a lot of different things.  But once you get the basics down and add patience to this, then you will grow amazing grapes that will do your name justice.