the two-year grape journey is a sweet
and interesting journey of planting
Thompson seedless grapes all the way to
harvest so sit back and enjoy as we go
through grape paradise
so we started our grapes back in January
of 2015 this is the flame seedless grape
we got this at Home Depot and you can
get these grape plants at any gardening
center in your area and the first thing
you need to do is once you get the
package you just open it and you want to
make sure that the roots stay hydrated
while you are preparing your potting mix
or while you are planning to plant this
in the ground so as you can see here
this is a bare rooted plant and you just
keep it in water just make sure the
roots stay hydrated while you prepare
your potting mix we will be planting
this in the container you can plant it
in the ground as well and here we go it
is just a simple just container with
water and now we are going to prepare
our potting mix we're going to be using
a large pot grape trees grow into very
large plants and need a lot of space for
their roots so we're going to be using
this container has a lot of holes
drilled as you can see a common question
that a lot of users ask me is if you
need holes and containers when growing
plants and the answer is yes you do
they're going to be using a mix of peat
moss 1/3 of peat moss I'm just using
this compressed bale of peat moss that
you can get at any garden store make
sure that you break up the pieces very
well and to this mix we are going to be
adding one-third of compost now I'm
using some homemade compost here you can
buy bagged compost if you want and some
of my compost is unfinished so I'm going
to be removing some of the unfinished
compost from this mix and make sure that
I have a lot of finished compost now it
doesn't really matter even if you have a
lot of unfinished compost it will
eventually break down but I just want to
make sure that the compost that I have
is almost finished
and I'm going to be mixing this in very
well with the peat moss and what I'm
going to be doing for the third part is
adding some vermiculite now I had an
option to use perlite here I just had
some vermiculite with me and it was
relatively hot weather not very hot but
it was sunny and I just wanted to make
sure that there is adequate moisture
retention for the plant especially
moving into the spring season and the
summer season now
you can substitute this with perlite
perlite is equally good it improves
drainage and it doesn't retain moisture
though vermiculite does retain moisture
while providing good drainage for your
plants the potting mix for your plants
now mix this in thoroughly and your
potting mix is created now I'm going to
be just adding this potting mix to our
container or large container now this is
a pretty large container as you can see
here it's probably about 22 inches in
diameter and about 20 inches high
very similar to a whiskey barrel
container but just a little better
shaped now when you add the potting mix
just make sure that you add some water
at every stage so if you fill up the
entire container and then add water
you're going to be having some issues
with the drainage so what I'm doing is
I'm adding some potting mix adding some
water and then continuing to add the
potting mix till we complete the
container now it's time to plant we're
going to be planting it just this way as
you see here is make sure that the plant
is well-balanced in the center and then
you can add additional potting mix along
the sides to make sure that the plant is
well seated and this is exactly what you
need to do for planting your plant and
what we have done before this is made
sure that the roots are hydrated so that
the plant roots doesn't dry and the
plant is not in shock and finally you
need to water the plant so just make
sure you water it a few times make sure
that the potting mix is well soaked in
and it might take some time for the mix
to start draining so just be patient you
might have to water this two or three
times
and this is the trellis for our grape
plant as you can see here not this one
this one is the one on the raised bed
but the one along the wall the wooden
trellis or the Arbor of the home that's
right next to the wall so fast forward
one month and you can see that the plant
has started producing a lot of new
growth now as long as you get this new
growth you can consider your planting as
a success you're going to be getting a
lot more shoots growing from this grape
plant now now as you can see here I have
tied some mason line
now what this mason line does is it is a
strong trellis support for these grape
plants to grow what I'm going to do is
as the plant grows I'm just going to
train it to grow around this string or
this mason line you can get mason lines
very easily at any hardware store I'll
also try to provide a link in the video
description below now let's go back to
the selection for the grape plant the
reason we chose flame' seedless grapes
to plant is because they require less
chilling hours or chill hours now it's
very important to understand what is
chill hours in places like Southern
California we get very less cold in the
winters so the chill hours is a number
which tells you whether your fruit
plants will produce fruits or not for
that year
so this variety of grape the flame
seedless requires very less chill hours
if you noticed when we planted the plant
if you notice the package it had a chill
our rating of hundred chill hours now
usually we get about 100 to 200 chill
hours every year during the winters
however some years are exceptions for
example the year before last we got just
72 chill hours now as you saw here we
trimmed off some of the shoots that were
growing towards the bottom during the
first year you want to make sure that
you grow two to three main branches some
people recommend growing just one branch
but I would recommend growing at least
two branches for your grape plant and
the reason is it eventually becomes
easier to manage your grape plant in the
second and the third and the later years
and as you can see here our mason lines
are still intact and we are training our
grape plant around this support the
trellis support using the Mason line and
in the first year you can see that the
plant is producing some birds and some
flowers and it looks like it's going to
be producing some grapes now remember
that during the first year it is
recommended that you remove all the
fruit from your grapes so that your
plant concentrates on growing shoots now
I did not do that because I just wanted
to see if this would produce any grapes
and the results are interesting so I'll
let you watch the video through this
year and see what do you think about it
as you can see here it's growing pretty
well it's following our trellis and
coming back to the chill hours just make
sure that you buy your grape plant with
the chill hours that are specific to
your region most of the grapes have very
high Childre quirements and they will
not grow in your area if you have warm
winters so in April you can see that the
plant has produced a lot more foliage
and the grapes that it produced are also
growing a little larger but the plant
has shown a lot of lush crew
now let's talk about the fertilizer
requirements for grapes now grapes must
have adequate nutrition and fertilizer
during the growing season which is
February through September and every
three months you need to make sure that
you add some kind of fertilizer so you
can follow the schedule that you see on
your screen here and that's a good idea
of when you should add fertilizer to
your grape plants you can use organic
fruit tree fertilizer you can use slow
release fertilizer all of them work very
well for growing grapes we keep training
our plants as we discussed as they keep
growing just make sure that you train
them we have been doing that for a while
now and you can see that the plants are
now reaching towards the arbor that they
are supposed to grow on
so how about the grapes that were
growing on the plant what happened to
them by now I recommend that you remove
all your grapes during the first year
just cut them and throw them away just
because they won't produce true grapes
now what happened in my case is the
grape plant was growing very well and
the grapes were actually showing on the
plant but one fine day when I looked at
the grapes on the plant they had all
dried and vanished
so they didn't really produce well they
were premature fruits and it's best to
get rid of them so yes if you're growing
grapes for the first year you can just
cut and throw away all your grapes it
might be difficult to do that but as you
can see here the plant has grown into a
very lush green plant so that's our
progress of the grape plant in the first
year and as you can see here it's now
June in the first year and the plant has
produced a very nice network of stems
that will grow very well in the next
growing season so let's look at how the
next growing season turns up
so the plant has remained dormant for
the fall in the winter season and now in
March of the next year March 2016 the
plant has grown into a very nice network
of stems a lot of leaves are now
sprouting and showing up you can see a
lot of new growth in the plants right
here in March which is the spring season
now you must add fertilizer for your
gray plants starting this season March
is the first month when you should start
adding fertilizer you can even do it in
February
and you can see here the plant is not
producing a lot of new growth and some
new birds that now look like grapes
bunches of grapes growing and the key to
getting good fruit from your grape plant
is that you need to see a lot of these
bunches being produced on the plant if
you see one or two you're not going to
get a lot of fruits from your grape
plant
so in April you can see that there's
more lush green foliage produced by the
plant and more buds that are growing and
these buds will form flowers and
eventually form grapes so all in all the
plant looks very beautiful and just look
at the fruits here these are the birds
and they will eventually open up into
flowers and they look very pretty here
you can see some of the birds that have
transformed into fruits and you can see
those dried flowers along the fruits and
the grapes are very interesting fruits
they they look pretty interesting and
you can see that they already start
looking like grapes like a bunch of
grapes at this stage here's another
flower you can see very clearly the
flowers the bud sprouting into flowers
and their self pollinating you don't
need any other pollinators for your
grape plant and you here you can see we
have about three to four main branches
now you can limit your grape plant to
less than that I just had enough space
for about three branches and I let it
grow and you can see that the plant has
grown very vigorously on the support and
is growing very well now in the next
year or the second year
and it will continue to grow that way
you can see more greenery and more birds
and more fruits being produced in your
plants
now grapes need full Sun to grow so if
you have areas which do not get about
eight hours of Sun it's not a good idea
to grow grapes there and this is one of
the reasons why I planted my grape plant
in a container because I thought I could
move it later now in May you can see
that the plants are a lot of more
bunches of grapes growing and the grapes
are now showing a lot of definition and
unlike the first year where they just
fell off the plant the fruits are now
staying very well on the tree you can
see a nice view of the garden and the
arbor and the trellis where the grape
plant is growing and I thought this was
the best part of the garden that I could
utilize to grow grapes because there's a
lot of space here too got a lot of good
support and I could just place the
container along the wall of this support
to grow my grape plant
so when you grow your grape plant just
make sure that you choose a nice pot
that the grapes can grow along a support
and then produce all these beautiful
grapes that you can see here
as you have been following my monthly
videos I've shown my grapes harvest
during the summer months and the
beautiful grapes the Thompson seedless
grapes produces grapes that grow from
green to yellow to red as they ripen
here we can see big bunches of grapes
growing and now it really looks like
you're going to be getting a lot of
grapes for harvest during this season
and by elevating the grapes to a height
you make sure that rodents stay away
from it all birds stay away from it it
might be possible that birds might eat
some of your grapes especially when
they're very ripe now in June we made
our first harvest and as you can see
here the grapes are about dark green to
slightly light green here and what I'm
doing is I'm not harvesting the whole
bunch
I'm just harvesting a few grapes from
the sides and what I realized was that
these grapes were still very good to eat
now if you look at the graves they are
not really right they don't look very
ripe as they don't look like yellow or
red in color so they actually taste
Angie now some people like hitting tangi
grapes they're not extremely sweet but
they have a very unique flavor so if
you're one of those folks that like to
eat tangi grapes this is a good time to
harvest your grapes and you can start
eating them you can even start putting
them in smoothies make grape juice out
of it they're all very good uses for
that
and once i realized that the grapes were
sweet enough to harvest we harvested our
first bunch of grapes and its really
very rewarding to harvest something like
grapes in your backyard grapes are
extremely easy to grow in the california
weather so if you live in the coastal
areas california or any other area that
is conducive to growing grapes you
should try it out you can see here more
bunches of grapes that are now ripening
and slowly we started seeing that we had
a lot of grapes to harvest on any given
day we would harvest two or three
bunches of grapes as you can see here
beautiful looking grapes and we are
still in June so towards the end of June
is when we saw that the grapes for
turning slightly yellow as you can see
here in fact the grapes that are ripe
for actually falling down from the vine
the grape vine so we made sure that we
harvested every now and then and here
you can clearly see a very good harvest
and at this stage the grapes are sweet
so we went from tangi tasting grapes to
sweet grapes by end of June and with
this kind of color with this kind of a
yellow color the grapes are very nice
very delicious and nice to eat
now in July we saw that the grave
started turning even more sweet and the
colors our color was turning towards red
as you can see here slightly red and at
this stage when the grapes start turning
red they taste very sweet you can see
here most of these grapes are reddish
yellow in color and here you can clearly
see the grapes turning red in color and
these are the ripe grapes these are
extremely sweet very delicious to eat
and if you want you can wait till this
stage but what I've realized is that if
you wait for all your grapes to be in
this stage you're going to lose a lot of
graves because they're going to fall
down from the tree so what I recommend
as a harvest schedule is to start in
June harvest slowly from July through
August and you're going to get a really
good harvest that way so here you can
see beautiful harvest and growing grapes
is a real pleasure it's very rewarding
so I highly recommend that you start
growing grapes in your area if you can
once again beautiful looking harvest as
you can see here and for a harvest
season from June through August it's a
long harvest season from just one plant
you can expect a lot of grapes and as
you can see here this plant is quite
large and it did produce a lot of grapes
this year for the second year now the
Thomason seedless grapes are the one
variety I highly recommend that you grow
in your home garden it's a very easy
variety to grow and it produces a lot
but if you do want to try out some other
variety that's perfectly fine just make
sure that the chill hours match the
chill hours in your area once again you
can see here beautiful looking grapes
right out of the grapevine and in August
you can see that we continue to harvest
our grapes and they are the same they're
reddish yellow very delicious and the
Sun has really increased the amounts of
sugar in the fruits and they're tasting
very sweet
now at the end of August you can start
pruning your grape plant once you have
harvested all your fruits and you want
to make sure that you remove all the
dead and diseased stems remove all the
dead leaves and make sure that your
plant is ready for the next growing
season so there we have it folks that
was our two here grape journey this
journey took a long time to film and
make so I'd appreciate if you could give
us a thumbs up if you like this video if
you like all our videos and you would
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way you can contribute towards the
success of California gardening and I
also want to tell you that when you're
buying your grape plant if you have a
Costco a local Costco do check it out
they have some great deals on grape
plants and you can buy them for a very
good price I wish you all a very happy
2017 and see you again soon happy
gardening
