Pruning Grapes

It wasn’t raining this past weekend, so I got outside and started pruning the grapes that we have. Admittedly, I had to look this topic up in books and online.

Thing is, my established vines look nothing like the picture. I think the previous owner somehow kept piling the vines on top of existing vines, and then the year and a half of neglect… One of my friends, who is into grape wine, told me that the vineyards really whack and hack on the vines, but I wasn’t entirely sure. My husband and I went to Willamette Vineyards after Thanksgiving, and our wine tasting server actually happened to be one of the many founders of the vineyard. I started to explain my grape vines, but she quickly cut me off. “Cut them back! They are vines and will rebound like any other vine, so just cut them back.” Well, there I have it! I guess she had some vines at home, and they take over if let go. Funny, my grandparents used to have vines, but they did so poorly that they were taken out. I think the neighbor’s trees started robbing it of light.

Anyway, I’ve got the vines cut back to a basic skeleton now, but they still need some work. My pruning hand was getting tired, so I will try again the next time the weather is decent.

I should mention that there is a spot in the yard where a grape vine touched down. It might have gotten some dirt kicked over it, but it put down roots and has started growing in the middle of my yard. I should dig it up now that it is dormant and try to give it to someone.

My Yard

My husband and I managed to buy a bank owned house. The bank told us that the house had been empty since January, so we took that to mean a little over six months. Talking to the neighbors, we found out that it really meant 18 months. That would explain why the grapes are growing up into the dogwood and into the neighbor’s maple tree. But they were good grapes – neglected with a really hot summer made them really tasty. I just pruned them back into our yard and out of the trees and off of other plants.

Apparently, the original owners hired some landscaper to come in, who planted a whole bunch of evergreen trees. There were 12 trees along an 80’ fence, and all were taller than the house. That is 6 feet of diameter allowed per tree, so the trees aren’t exactly healthy. I would love to keep the blue spruce, but the sides of it are completely dead due to the other trees. In fact, we have no lawn, only moss, as sunlight doesn’t hit the ground.

So, the first thing that happen was that we cut out two trees that were right up against the house, a middle tree in the front yard that you can’t even tell was there because the other two have filled up the void, another tree in a bad place that would get tall if we left it alone, and one very large shrub that was blocking the entire dinning room window. We then limbed up all the other trees, which allowed light in. In one case, limbing the tree allowed visibility to pull out of the driveway safely.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are cheering, as they thought the house looked dark and hated the limbs coming into their yard. I actually have a picture taken inside the house during a summer day, and it looks like night time.

While my father was taking of limbs, I told him to go ahead and remove a tree on the corner of the lot because it had hardly any leaves on it in August. The neighbor’s maple was getting all the light. Only once he fell the small sickly tree did we realize it was a crab apple tree. Curses! I could use those for cider. Or could I? If we couldn’t tell in August that it was a crab apple, then there probably wasn’t enough crab apples on it to use. It was a sick tree.

The place has eight blueberry bushes, which I’m excited about, except that they are also planted too close together and some of them are really tiny compared to others, so I will try to transplant every other one to other places when we get the place a little more in shape. It also had some Marion berries, but last year, they never ripened, but instead were green and started fermenting on the vine. If they don’t do well this next year, we will probably take them out and replace them with something else.

Unfortunately, we recently had a windstorm take out half of a tree, so we called in a logging company, who took out six of the taller, more difficult trees. We hate doing it, and it was costly, but these trees are just not healthy. As a result, our moss lawn is dying because it can’t hack having that much sunlight on them.

I have placed an order for two apple trees with the Home Orchard Society to plant in that area. That’s right – I’m eventually going to put five trees along the 80’ fence line, giving each tree 16’ of space. To boot, they shouldn’t grow taller than the house. Healthy trees, nice shade, happy owner.

Tannin

Tannin is found in grapes and apples, and it is similar to acid as it makes you pucker, but it is not an acid and does not affect the pH if more tannin is added. Tannins are sometimes described as the bitter tang and astringency to cider.

Tannin is particularly found in red wines because the tannin is present in the skins, which are not removed until the wine is done fermenting, unlike white wines were the skins are removed when pressed. Some regional ciders are low in tannins, while some mass produced ciders just use whatever apples they can get their hands on have very little tannins. The question of if tannins are a good thing or a bad thing really depend on the taster.

Brew supply stores sell grape tannin as a powder. I use it for fruit wines that probably don’t have much tannin, though others may use raisins to both sweeten their wine and add tannin. Other plant that have tannin include tea, elderberry, cranberries, strawberries, blueberries, pomegranates, persimmons, nuts that can be consumed raw, acorns, some beers, cloves, tarragon, cumin, thyme, vanilla, cinnamon, and most legumes.

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to test for tannins like there is for pH, as it a complicated lab procedure which you can read on Andrew Lea's website.

Since it is so difficult to test for, Andrew Lea suggests learning how to taste for tannin in apples. He wrote in a Cider Workshop email, “Think of tannin as the taste of cold tea without milk - astringent, slightly bitter, mouth puckering. Then see if you can identify that by taste in the apple. Be very sure to distinguish it from acid, which is the sharp taste.”