Yakima Winery Families
Who says wine isn’t a family affair? The Wine Yakima Valley website has an entire directory of local vineyards, many of which are run by families. In fact, there are more home vineyards popping up locally than every before. Some families are growing their own grapes and having them bottled and labeled for their own private collection.
Some families, however, grow grapes and then end up eating them all. That would be us. We have one very old and very overgrown grapevine that was absolutely delicious this year. In fact, even the grapes that dried up and froze on the vine are still delicious, especially in oatmeal.
If you want to start a home vineyard, here are some things we learned:
Grapevines that are pruned regularly yield more grapes. Since the grapes grow on new growth. here’s the hitch, new growth comes from old growth. So, the more old growth you have, the more new growth you’ll have, but it has to be balanced, because otherwise you get what we started with, a big old grapevine that’s too tired to produce many grapes.
To keep their grapevines in check, professional vineyards often prune down completely, but it’s OK to just plant one as long as you give it a place to climb. Ours climbs on an old barn, but if it had access to two-sided sunshine, like a fence or trellis, it would produce more grapes.
You can graft grapevines, or start them from clippings. I prefer a concord style grape, so I plan to start a few from clippings next year. When you start from a clipping, it saves a lot of time. Grape seeds pretty much suck and a cloned grape is a much better idea. With seeds, you never quite know what the quality will be.
Here are some resources we found for growing your own grapes, I found them really helpful.
How to Prune Grapes by Christy Mroczek
The Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Pruning Grapevines Instructions
How and When to Prune a Grape Vine
Iowa State University’s Pruning Grapevines pamphlet
Growing grapes can be a family affair, the leaves are edible and popular in Greek recipes (just don’t spray them with pesticides, and avoid chemical fertilizers)
Think of all the water inside grapes, that water comes from the ground. That’s why I avoid chemical gardening. Someone once said that grapes were like toxin sponges, and ever since then, I can’t bear to feed my kids a non-organic grape. I just wish the darned apple farmers around me would feel that way.
The book below (recommended above) is the absolute most awesome organic gardening book EVER.