Pruning in the urban vineyard

Last weekend, my friend Jane Toben helped me prune the vines in the back yard. I have eight St. Vincent plants. Some are vigorous, others are puny. The strong vines had become a tangled mess after a productive season:

Before pruning.

 But we cut them down into an organized structure that will enable growth and yield:

Same spot on the vine after pruning.

I had stared at the vines for a few minutes for several days in a row last week, wondering what I should do with them. I have notes from the previous two or three years of pruning with Jane, but they never make any sense when I review them. I also have a training video of the two of us pruning. The video does make sense, but only for the decisions we were making at the time. The learning curve is so long because it's something I do for 30 minutes once a year.

In any case, Jane came over and said the same things she has said in past years, as preserved in my notes and the training video, and they made perfect sense.

Among the highlights, we cut out two main cordons that looked sad and, in each case, wrapped a more vigorous cane around the wire to become a new and productive cordon:

New cordon (left).

The flexibility of the vines and the strategy of pruning fascinated me.

Jane's pruning pointers:

• Don't start cutting until you have analyzed the whole vine.
• First take off everything you don't want.
• Space canes about a foot apart.
• Favor canes going up over canes going down.
• On each cane you leave on the vine, count 6-8 buds out and cut.
• Keep the growth close to the trunk.
• Better take off too much than not enough.

Ed with Jane Toben.