Home Vegetable Gardening - F. F. Rockwell (nice books to read .txt) 📗

to three or four eyes, and the roots should also be shortened back—

usually about one-third. Be sure to make the hole large enough, when

setting, to let the roots spread naturally, and work the soil in well

around them with the fingers. Set them in firmly, by pressing down hard

with the ball of the foot after firming by hand. They are set about six

feet apart.

GRAPE PRUNING

As stated above, the vine is cut back, when planting, to three or four

eyes. The subsequent pruning—and the reader must at once distinguish

between pruning, and training, or the way in which the vines are

placed—will determine more than anything else the success of the

undertaking. Grapes depend more upon proper pruning than any other

fruit or vegetable in the garden. Two principles must be kept track of

in this work. First principle: _the annual crop is borne only on

canes of the same year’s growth, springing from wood of the previous

season’s growth_. Second principle: _the vine, if left to itself,

will set three or four times the number of bunches it can properly

mature_. As a result of these facts, the following system of pruning

has been developed and must be followed for sure and full-sized crops.

(1) At time of planting, cut back to three or four eyes, and after

these sprout leave only one (or two) of them, which should be staked

up.

(2) Following winter (December to March), leave only one cane and cut

this back to three or four eyes.

(3) Second growing season, save only two canes, even if several sprout,

and train these to stake or trellis. These two vines, or arms,

branching from the main stem, form the foundation for the one-year

canes that bear the fruit. However, to prevent the vine’s setting too

much fruit (see second principle above) these arms must be cut back in

order to limit the number of fruit-bearing canes that will spring from

them, therefore:

(4) Second winter pruning, cut back these arms to eight or ten buds—

and we have prepared for the first crop of fruit, about forty bunches,

as the fruiting cane from each bud will bear two bunches on the

average. However these main arms will not bear fruiting-canes another

year (see first principle above) and therefore:

(5) At the third winter pruning, (a) of the canes that bore fruit, only

the three or four nearest the main stem or trunk are left; (b) these

are cut back to eight or ten buds each, and (c) everything else is

ruthlessly cut away.

Each succeeding year the same system is continued, care being taken to

rub off, each May, buds or sprouts starting on the main trunk or arms.

The wood, in addition to being cut back, must be well ripened; and the

wood does not ripen until after the fruit. It therefore sometimes

becomes necessary to cut out some of the bunches in order to hasten the

ripening of the rest. At the same time the application of some potash

fertilizer will be helpful. If the bunches do not ripen up quickly and

pretty nearly together, the vine is overloaded and being damaged for

the following year.

The matter of pruning being mastered, the question of training is one

of individual choice. Poles, trellises, arbors, walls—almost anything

may be used. The most convenient system, however, and the one I would

strongly recommend for practical home gardening for results, is known

as the (modified) Kniffen system. It is simplicity itself. A stout wire

is stretched five or six feet above the ground; to this the single main

trunks of the vine run up, and along it are stretched the two or three

arms from which the fruiting-canes hang down. They occupy the least

possible space, so that garden crops may be grown practically on the

same ground. I have never seen it tried, but where garden space is

limited I should think that the asparagus bed and the Kniffen grape-arbor just described could be combined to great advantage by placing

the vines, in spaces left for them, directly in the asparagus row. Of

course the ground would have to be manured for two crops. A 2-8-10

fertilizer is right for the grapes. If using stable manure, apply also

ashes or some other potash fertilizer.

If the old-fashioned arbor is used, the best way is to run the main

trunk up over it and cut the laterals back each year to two or three

eyes.

The most serious grape trouble which the home gardener is likely to

encounter is the black-rot Where only a few grapes are grown the

simplest way of overcoming this disease is to get a few dozen cheap

manila store-bags and fasten one, with a couple of ten-penny nails,

over each bunch. Cut the mouth of the bag at sides and edges, cover the

bunch, fold the flaps formed over the cane, and fasten. They are put on

after the bunches are well formed and hasten the ripening of the fruit,

as well as protecting it. On a larger scale, spraying will have to be

resorted to. Use Bordeaux, 5-5-50, from third leaf’s appearance to

middle of July; balance of season with ammoniacal copper carbonate. The

spray should be applied in particular just before every rain—

especially on the season’s growth. Besides the spraying, all trimmed-off wood, old leaves and twigs, withered bunches and grapes, or

“mummies,” and refuse of every description, should be carefully raked

up in the spring and burned or buried. Also give clean culture and keep

the main stems clean.

The grape completes the list of the small fruits worth while to the

average home gardener. If you have not already experimented with them,

do not let your garden go longer without them. They are all easily

obtained (none costing more than a few cents each), and a very limited

number will keep the family table well supplied with healthy

delicacies, which otherwise, in their best varieties and condition,

could not be had at all. The various operations of setting out, pruning

and spraying will soon become as familiar as those in the vegetable

garden. There is no reason why every home garden should not have its

few rows of small fruits, yielding their delicious harvests in

abundance.