The weather was just too nice yesterday to stay inside. I had to get out and do something. That something turned out to be pruning the grapes. (The Master Gardeners didn’t come yesterday, since we were all on a “Buy Local” tour of a couple of our local nurseries – Hillside and Hongs.) Normally, this would be a little late for pruning, but they haven’t started to leaf out yet. I’m sure they’ll come on fast with the warm weather this week. (Dare I call it hot weather?)

The vines grew quite aggressively last year, so there was a lot to prune. Pruning grapes can be a little scary, even for me, so I had Bob, our other Hort Agent, come help with the pruning.

Bob went right to town on those grapes. First we worked on training the young vine. Then “snip, snip, snip!” He really made quick work of the rest of the vines.

Can you see the difference? The vines look positively bare at this point. Bob pruned almost all the growth from last year off, leaving little shoots with 1 bud for regrowth of vegetative vines and slightly bigger shoots with 3 buds for fruiting vines.