How to Make a Grape Vine

Grape Vines aren’t planted from seeds, they are planted from the shoots of other grapevines or better known as propagating grape vines.

Therefore, if you want to make a grapevine from scratch you need to show up to a vineyard when they are pruning.  Depending on where you are located wineries will do pruning at different times.  In northern climates, we typically don’t do our first pruning until after the cold snap.  March or later is safe here.  This is when a winery is cutting off 90% of the growth from the year before and this is the time to get your free grape vines.  Wineries generally don’t object to people taking their cuttings and it is a very common request.  Just ask and most will be happy to give them to you.
Take the following in consideration when looking for cuttings:

• You want growth from the year before
• You want cuttings that are approximately pencil thick
• Cut the cutting to a length of 4 buds keeping at least a few inches from either side of the starting and end buds
• Make sure the cuttings are health, they should be a nice golden brown colour

As for planting the grape vines

• Place the cuttings in nice healthy soil, preferably pots
• Put two buds under the dirt, two buds above
• Make sure they are right side up!  The tip of the bud should point upwards
• Keep the cutting watered and you should start to see growth, I would recommend keeping the cutting inside for at least a year and don’t transfer it until the following year

​Disclaimer:  I would only recommend using propagating as a technique for learning how grape vines grow.  You will get a much higher success rate in the vineyard if you buy bare-root dormant grape vines from a nursery.  They are experts in the mater and you are sure to have a nice healthy starting point for a grape vine.