Author name: Pete Lindgren

Got a grape vine that hasn’t been pruned in years? Don’t dig it out yet. Learn how to assess the trunk, work through a staged 1–3 year renovation plan, and retrain your vine back into full production — or start fresh from a basal shoot if the trunk is gone.

Choosing the right grape trellis system depends on your variety and climate. Cold-hardy hybrids like Frontenac and Marquette grow best on a high cordon, while vinifera wine grapes thrive on VSP. This guide compares VSP, High Cordon, GDC, and arbor systems so you can build the right trellis from the start.

Cane pruning keeps long 1-year-old canes tied to the fruiting wire; spur pruning keeps short 2-3 bud spurs on a permanent cordon. The right choice depends almost entirely on whether your variety has fruitful basal buds. Here is how to decide.

Grape vines are not heavy feeders. Learn how to fertilize grapevines the right way — when to apply nitrogen, how to read vine vigor, and why less is almost always more in cold climates.

A healthy-looking grape vine that refuses to produce fruit is one of the most frustrating problems in the home vineyard. Here are the seven most common reasons and exactly what to do about each one.

Japanese beetles skeletonize grape leaves from midsummer onward, while spotted wing drosophila lay eggs inside ripening berries before harvest. Here’s how to identify, monitor, and control both pests in a backyard vineyard.

Downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola) shows up as pale yellow oil spots on the upper leaf surface with white cottony growth underneath. It needs rain and warm, humid weather to spread — and copper fungicide, not sulfur, is the right tool to stop it. Here’s how to identify it early and manage it before it wrecks your canopy.

White powder on your grape leaves? Learn to identify powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator), understand why it thrives even without rain, and get practical organic and conventional control options — including sulfur, potassium bicarbonate, and canopy management.

Black rot (Guignardia bidwellii) can wipe out your entire grape crop in a wet summer. Learn how to identify the leaf spots and mummified berries, time your fungicide spray window correctly, and use sanitation to keep this disease manageable in a cold-climate vineyard.

You can press grapes for wine at home without any special equipment. A mesh straining bag, clean hands, or a colander and cheesecloth will get the job done for small batches. Here is exactly how to do it, plus when to press whites versus reds.

Racking wine means siphoning off the sediment (lees) into a clean vessel. Rack your first time around SG 1.010, again after fermentation finishes dry, then every 2-3 months during aging. Here’s exactly how to do it safely, when to add SO2, and the mistakes that cost clarity.