There are many reasons why you may want to grow your own grapes. For example, you may want to save a little money on your groceries, or you might only want to consume organic grapes instead of grapes that are sprayed with chemicals and pesticides. However, not everyone can grow their own grapes. Here is what it takes to grow your very own grapes.
Research
Before you start to grow your own grapes, you want to do some research at your library or online. You want to know just about everything there is to know about growing grapes if you want to be successful at growing them.
Choose Type of Grapes
While you were researching about growing grapes, you may have chosen what type of grapes you want to grow. Generally, you should choose the type of grapes that will grow the best in your location and climate.
If you live in the south, you want to grow European grapes or Muscadine grapes because they do well in heat. However, European grapes can be grown in certain cold environments. American grapes are very resistant when it comes to disease and they are able to resist winter cold. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains, you probably want to grow American grapes.
Vineyard
If you want to produce many healthy grapes, you need to pick a good location. You should keep the vineyard away from woodlands and the area should have exposure to good air and water drainage. The area should also have good air drainage to avoid infection by fungus diseases.
Soil
The best type of soil for grapes are gravelly or sandy loam soil. However, grapes grow well in most soil types. Ensure that the soil can hold a lot of water and that it will not be supersaturated with water at any time during the year. The fertility of the soil should be average and the soil should be slightly acid. The soil should not be poor and it cannot contain too much clay.
Get Plants
If you want to be a commercial grape grower, then you will probably want to get plants from a nursery with a good reputation for their plants. You should choose to purchase healthy grape plants that are at one year of age, even though they cost a little more.
These vines will grow very fast, which means that these plants will quickly repay the extra cost because you will be able to harvest the grapes faster and you will harvest more grapes as well.
No matter how tempting, you should not purchase any plants that may be less than stellar or you may end up wasting a lot of money. Purchasing plants for a vineyard is a long-term investment, as you will only start to make profits after a few years. Do not purchase nursery plants that are two years old, as these were often the plants that would not sell because they were too weak after their first year of life.
If you just want a few plants to grow in your backyard or garden, then you will not need as much money for start-up compared to a commercial grape grower. You can purchase seeds and plant them in your garden, which will make the cost of your vineyard much cheaper. If you decide to self-propagate plants, then you should ensure that the plant where the seeds came from are healthy.
As you can see, a lot of effort is required to grow your own grapes. Depending on whether you’re doing this as a hobby or for money, you may need to spend a lot of money, but you will need to exert a lot of effort into your vineyard.
