Grapevine help

[loadsofapples]

Just moved and we have an old neglected grapevine )it had lots of leaves on it over late summer). Apparently it used to be under a poly tunnel and did very well, lots of fruit (until that blew away one day).

Can it be resurrected? And if so, how should I go about it?

You can probably prune it quite hard. They are quite vigorous.

Oh yes, that's well worth trying to resurrect! If it was under a polytunnel, it may be one of the varieties that needs protection, but given how old it appears to be, there's a good chance that it'll be a variety that'll cope well outside.

I would start by taking off all the spindly stuff to about 2-3 buds from a main stem. Not guaranteeing this is the right thing to do, it's just what I'd do!

Thank you so much for your advice. Going to give it a shot. Hoping to buy a new polytunnel soon, guess if it doesn’t fruit I can use it for something else so nothing to lose!

There's various named methods of pruning grape vines, but they all involve taking the new season's growth almost back to the main stem.

I treat mine like a wisteria. Take back new shoots about 2/3 way in summer, then main pruning in winter. I don't think it fits any of the approved methods but it works well enough for me - I can't be bothered to thin out the bunches to get large grapes for dessert, so I accept bunches of small grapes which we scatter on cereal, and I've just discovered Tuscan grape cake, which is really nice.

The grape vines we have , cut back to the 3rd notch. This will help new growth. They are thirsty plants . When they have leave and start to flower spray with insect repellent. Enjoy your grapes in the summer. Ready for making wine about September/October.
Some of ours are over 20 yrs old and now have to be cut down and replaced.

When they have leave and start to flower spray with insect repellent. Why? I haven't found them to be prone to insect attack?

We had ours in a greenhouse but had to give it a hard prune to get some shape back.

Between Xmas and New Year we cut the side shoots back to 2 leaf growing points. Once the grapes had set we kept each shoot at 5 leaves long beyond the grapes.