Grape Expectations

We got our zinfandel grape plant, Zaragoza, last May after falling in love with wine (growing, making, drinking- you name it).  She started growing like crazy so I used a wire tomato plant cage (which I clipped and bent open), some wire, and a wooden stake to create a trellis. After a long winter & spring of plumbing disasters which required moving the grape plant (don’t worry- the plant went into hibernation for the winter so it wasn’t disturbed), the trellis began to look a little (okay, a lot) worse for wear.  I decided to give the trellis a little love this weekend. Sorry that the wire is hard to see in the pics! :)

For those of you who have never seen grape growing on a vineyard, this website does a great job at explaining the Vertical Shoot Positioned (VSP) trellis system I am using for my “upright” growing grapes.  I am training the shoot to the bottom wire. Once she gets a bit bigger this year, I will get taller wooden stakes and the guide wires back up like last year (off of the sides of the tomato cage trellis).

Source: http://www.ristcanyonvineyards.com/html/tip5.html

Zaragoza didn’t produce any fruit her first year but she already has 4 bundles starting to grow this year.  Look at the difference in the size of these bundles over 2 weeks! Who wants to help make & drink our first bottle of wine?!