Interested in growing grapes in your backyard? Whether you’re planting grapes for fresh eating, homemade wine, or delicious jelly, these vigorous vines offer beauty and bounty.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to grow grapes at home, including tips on choosing the right grape varieties, planting, pruning, and harvesting. With proper care, your grapevine can produce sweet, juicy fruit for decades, making it one of the most rewarding plants to grow in your garden.

Grape vines not only produce sweet and versatile fruits, but they also add an element of drama to a garden or landscape. They are vigorous growers, and with the proper pruning, they will produce fruit with ease within a few years and last for 30 years or more!

For home gardeners, there are three main types of grapes to consider: American (Vitis labrusca), European (V. vinifera), and French-American hybrids. American grapes are the most cold-hardy, while European grapes—usually better for wine than the table—do well in warm, dry, Mediterranean-type zones. Hybrids tend to be both cold-hardy and disease-resistant, but are not as flavorful as European grapes. Another type that is grown in the U.S. is the Muscadine (V. rotundifolia), which is native to the southern United States. The Muscadine grape’s thick skin makes it best suited for use in jams, wine, or other processed grape products.

Make sure you purchase grape vines from a reputable nursery. Vigorous, 1-year-old plants are best. Smaller, sometimes weaker, 1-year-old plants are often held over by the nursery to grow another year and are then sold as 2-year-old stock. Obtain certified virus-free stock when possible.

Planting

Grapevines should be planted in early spring after the date of the last hard freeze has passed. Vines are usually purchased as dormant, bare-root plants.
Most grape varieties are self-fertile. To be sure, ask when you are buying vines if you will need more than one plant for pollination.
Select a site with full sun. If you don’t have a spot with full sun, make sure it at least gets morning sun. A small amount of afternoon shade won’t hurt. Your soil needs to be deep, well-drained, and loose. You also need good air circulation.
Grape vines will need to be trained to some sort of support to grow upward. This will also cut the risk of disease. The support needs to be in place at planting.
- One option is a sturdy trellis or arbor. The arbor may have two, four or six posts, depending on whether it’s attached to the house or another structure. The top can be secured with 2-inch by 4-inch wooden slats that hold the arbor together and topped with 1-inch by 2-inch wood pieces to create the latticework for the vines to grow on. You may also need corner braces to secure the whole structure. Grow the grapes, one per post, selecting the strongest cane. Allow it to grow to the top of the post the first year, securing it to the post as it grows.
- If you are low on free space, try growing grapes on a stake. Pound in a sturdy stake next to the grapevine and securely attach it. Keep the vine growing vertically. Let the vine grow to the top of the stake the first year, then top it. Allow 4 to 5 side canes to grow. Remove all the rest.
Before planting grapevines, soak their roots in water for two or three hours.
Space vines 6 to 10 feet apart (16 feet for muscadines).
For each vine, dig a planting hole 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Fill with 4 inches of topsoil. Trim off broken roots and set the vine into the hole slightly deeper than it grew in the nursery. Cover the roots with 6 inches of soil and tamp down. Fill with the remaining soil, but don’t tamp this down.
Water at time of planting.

Growing

Do not fertilize in the first year unless you have problem soil. Fertilize lightly in the second year of growth.
Use mulch to keep an even amount of moisture around the vines.
A mesh net is useful in keeping birds away from budding fruit.

Pruning Grapes

Pruning is very important. Grapes produce fruit on shoots growing off of one-year-old canes. If you have too many old canes (from no pruning), then you’ll get fewer grapes. If you prune back your vines completely each year, then you get lots of new growth, but again, few grapes.

Pruning is done in late winter when the plant is dormant, usually around March. But for the first year or so, the goal is to create a strong root system and trunk. Plant in spring and prune back the grapevine to three buds. Then wait until the first winter.

If you are growing grapes on an arbor or trellis: Grow the grapes, one per post, selecting the strongest cane. Allow it to grow to the top of the post the first year, securing it to the post as it grows. The first winter, top the cane and allow it to grow side branches along the top of the arbor. If you let the vines just continue to grow, they will produce dense shade, but little fruit. Prune the grapes each winter by removing those canes that fruited the previous year, cutting back one-year-old canes to five to six buds, and leaving some renewal canes pruned back to two to three buds. The goal is to have canes on the trellis spaced 2 to 3 feet apart. Remove any weak, thin canes. You want to leave enough fruiting canes on the trellis to fill it back in each summer, but not so many that it becomes a tangled mess.
If you are growing grapes on a stake, cut back the side canes in the first winter to three buds on each. These will send out shoots that will produce grapes the next year. Remove all weak and spindly growth, especially along the lower parts of the trunk. The second winter, prune back the healthiest canes to six to ten buds, select two canes as renewal spurs, and prune those back to three buds on each and remove all other canes. Repeat this pruning each winter. Your trunk should be able to support four to seven fruiting canes each year as it gets older.

Types

Note: Seedless varieties will produce smaller grapes.

‘Edelweiss’: Hardy in zones 4–7 (–20°F), early white variety. Table and wine.
‘Reliance’: Hardy in zones 4–8, seedless, pink table grape.
‘Seibel’: Hybrid, wine grape. Cold hardy.
‘Swenson Red’: Hardy in zones 4–8, red table grape.
‘Magnolia’: White Muscadine wine grape. Sweet. Best in zones 7–9.
‘Valiant’: Eating grape hardy to Zone 2.

Fruit

About The Author

Catherine Boeckmann

Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Catherine Boeckmann loves nature, stargazing, and gardening, so it’s not surprising that she and The Old Farmer’s Almanac found each other. She leads digital content for the Almanac website and is also a certified master gardener in the state of Indiana.

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Comments

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<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 12/01/2014 - 09:46

That is a puzzle. Sometimes birds will not return because they have found another preferred source of food. Or, there might be a predator that has moved in (including a domestic cat or dog, or a fox or hawk), or something else that has made them uneasy (such as a child playing nearby). Or, there might have been a change in environment (such as logging, development, etc.) that has removed shelter, water, etc. nearby. Weather can also play a role--was the summer unusually warm, rainy, etc.? Also, have the grapes been treated differently this year? Such as any pesticides? Sometimes, it's just that the flocks didn't choose to visit your area in numbers this time. Hopefully, though, they will visit next year.

Lori Mecham Fri, 10/24/2014 - 10:27

I bought a Thompson's seedless and red flame grape combo in one pot from Costco. I reported it In a bigger pot . We just bought a house and I want to separate them and plant them in the ground. I am worried they will die if I try to separate them.Should I just leave them alone or can ibtry to prune the roots to.separate them?

<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Thu, 10/30/2014 - 12:47

It's recommended to plant grapes in the spring. Leave the plants in the pot over the winter. It's a good idea to separate the two varieties. In spring remove the grapes from the pot and brush away as much of the soil as possible. Then use your hands to gently pull them apart. If you need to prune a few of the roots it shouldn't hurt the plants.

Johanna Chumley Wed, 10/15/2014 - 19:15

I would like to plant grapes near my raised bed garden. The grapes would be placed along a cinderblock wall. My hope is to use them for grapes, but also as a decorative addition to my sunny side yard here in Phoenix, AZ. Any suggestions? Will they do ok in an area like that? Will the other plants help or hinder the vines growth?

Johanna Chumley Mon, 02/23/2015 - 17:18

i also like to plant.would you join me?

Richard Devlin Thu, 10/02/2014 - 18:32

This is my first grape vine and I'm wondering when to prune it 2 vines are pencil thick and about 7 ft long please let me know oh it a concord do I need 2 for pollinate B

Doug Cherry Wed, 03/18/2015 - 19:18

I have a concord grape that I pruned back last week here in Chicago. It is best to prune the vines in late winter when the first sunny days arrive (and the snow has finally gone for a while), but before the buds start to break. Pruning in the fall is fine too although there's no way to be absolutely sure which branches may die off from the cold. Pruning later won't kill the grape but it will bleed sap at such a rate that you will never want to chance it again. Mine grows up the corner of a garage to 7 feet then along the 2 sides for about 12-15 feet each way. Last year it produced about 25+ lbs of fruit and despite my not spraying, the only pest was a small caterpillar (looper) that chewed into the berries.

Edgar50 Sun, 09/28/2014 - 20:42

This is my third year and first of fruit production. Between June and July I had 10 grape clusters which we ate because it was to few to produce wine. I thought, well that's it for the season. But a month latter the vine started producing clusters again and now we have about 16 clusters starting to enter the veraison stage. That's OK, but the vine insist in producing more and now I also have about 6 flower buds. Some of the leaves are also turning yellow in a faster rate. The question is, What I do now. Should I cut the flowers should I allow them to produce the third crop of the season? Thanks,Edgar

<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:27

It depends on where you live. If you live in a colder region the flower buds will probably not have a chance to mature into grapes. With less daylight hours the grapes vines will slow down and the leaves will turn yellow. We suggest that you remove the flower buds and let the energy from the vine go to the ripening 16 clusters.

Jim Bisordi Mon, 09/22/2014 - 09:49

Hello, I have a question maybe you can help me with. My l'acadie grapes I have planted in Nova Scotia came down with powdery mildew this year. I sprayed them but they lost a lot of leaves. Last week we had a frost that killed off the leaves that were left. Will the grapes continue to ripen? Thank You

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How to Grow Grapes: Planting, Pruning, and Harvesting Tips