Outdoor living space is always the most enjoyable spot in your home where you can do a lot of fun activities with your family and friends. Having some cups of relaxing tea or joyful BBQ party suits well to hold in your backyard. Therefore, you have to make it look and feel as inviting as possible all the time.
Adding grapes to your backyard landscaping perhaps sounds quite complicated at first. But, actually, it’s not. Planting grapes is kinda an easy job that you can even do all by yourself if you know the proper way to do it.
Once you plant your very own grapes, you will get a lot of benefits like:
- Fresh fruits, obviously – Well, there is nothing more enjoyable than having some refreshing fruits right from your own backyard. A few grapevines are enough to serve all the family members of your house.
- Aesthetic addition – You can turn your grapevines into a major focal point by planting them on a beautiful arbor. They will look stunning in all weather conditions with proper maintenance.
- Inviting good insects – Grapevines can attract beneficial insects that help to improve your backyard’s soil and are enjoyable to watch.
So, if you want to add more attraction to your outdoor living space, growing grapes is absolutely a good idea to keep in mind. You will have both a beautiful and exhilarating backyard that everyone surely adores.
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Below, we share a simple tutorial on how to grow grapes in your backyard that you can easily follow.
How to Grow Grapes in Your Backyard
Growing grapes can be done all by yourself without any helps from expert gardeners. But, you have to know the right ways to plant it, so you can successfully grow them and enjoy the fresh juicy fruits as you wish. Spring is the right season to plant your grapes, so you have to wait for the season to come.
Determine the Right Site
The sites where you would like to plant your grapes essentially determine whether they can grow properly or not. You have to make sure that it’s perfect for the grapes or you may end up failing them. You can prepare the sites to plant your grapes a year before the planting step.
- Make sure that the site is exposed fully to the sunlight since grapes need it all day long. You also have to know the climate of your region, ideally, grapes need at least 160 sunny days each year to grow well.
- The soil of your backyard has to have good drainage and loose enough. If you have clayey soil, you may need to amend it by adding organic materials or compost.
- Remove all the weeds and grass on the site and don’t let them grow back in the next future. They will take the nutrients from the soil which are needed by the grapes.
- If possible, you can choose the sloppy site since it has better air circulation.
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Dig Grapes Research
There are plenty of grape cultivars that you can plant in your backyard. You have to know which one is right for you. You can dig some online research or consult with the local gardeners. There are two basic considerations to determine the cultivar, which are:
- Your Climate – Find the right grapes that can adapt to the climate of your region. They will grow properly and thrive for years if you choose the right ones.
- Your Goals – You have to know the goals that you want to achieve from your grapes. Do you just want to simply eat them freshly? Or do you want to produce your own wine? Each variety offers you different benefits, for instance, Concord grapes are good to serve freshly and French-American hybrid will make a very tasty wine.
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Start Planting
After you have prepared the sites for the grapes and choose the rights cultivar, you can start planting them. As mentioned above, you have to plant the bare-root grapes at the beginning of spring.
- Purchase the bare-root grapevines, if the roots are long enough, you can trim them to 6″ – 12 “
- Soak the roots in the freshwater for about 3 hours.
- Make sure the soil is ready. It has to be cultivated, free from weeds, and mixed with some amendments.
- Dig the planting holes which have to be deeper than the roots (around 12″ wide and 12″ deep).
- Fill the holes with 4″ topsoil
- Plant the bare-root grapevines, point the roots down, and spread them evenly.
- Fill the hole with roots in it with 6″ soil, tamp it down.
- Fill the rest of the space of the hole, don’t tamp it down.
- Plant the training stakes and loosely tie the shoots to create a straight vine structure.
- Water the roots after you have finished planting.
Maintain the Vines
To let the grapes grow well, of course, you have to maintain it on a regular basis.
- Two weeks after planting, you can add some fertilizer. Dig some research to find out what kind of fertilizer you need.
- Always remove the weeds and grass that grow around the grape sites every time you spot some.
- Make sure that the harmful pests don’t come close to the vines. You can use bird netting if necessary.
- To keep the moisture of the soil, add some mulch around the sites of the vines.
- When the winter comes to an end, you have to prune the grapevines (usually around March). Just remove the old shoots and leave the strongest ones.
- In the first year of growth, you need to remove the flowers that may grow.
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So, those are some steps that you can follow if you want to grow some grapes in your backyard. Make sure you carefully do each of the steps above so you can have beautiful grapevines that you can enjoy as you wish!
Add this How to Grow Grapes in Your Backyard Tutorial to your DIY projects list now!
