How to Make a Grape Growing Arbor

Growing grapes in the home garden is one way to save money on the fresh fruit, jellies, juices and wines that grapes provide. A series of posts or trellises installed in a sunny space creates a pleasant grape-growing arbor while providing the support grape vines need. A diligent course of pruning and training in late winter will guide your grape vines onto the horizontal supports and up to form a grape-laden, vine-entwined canopy. After a few years, the vines will fill out each summer and produce a season-long harvest as well as a peaceful arbor bower in your garden.

Things You'll Need

• 4 marking posts
• Measuring tape
• Shovel
• Pea gravel
• Work gloves
• 2 metal arched trellises
• 4 metal support posts
• 80 feet of 10-gauge wire
• Wire cutters
• Compost

Instructions

1. Measure the base of the metal trellises. These will serve as the end supports for your grape arbor.

2. Mark off a space in a sunny area of your garden or property for your grape arbor. Place marking posts at the four corners of an area about 16 feet long and as wide as the bases of your trellises.

3. Dig post holes about 12 inches deep, or as deep as the stakes on your trellis base will allow, where you have placed marking posts. Install your trellises into the holes.

4. Tamp the soil firmly around the hole after you've replaced the soil. Top each post hole with a one-inch layer of pea gravel.

5. Dig a narrow trench length-wise between each trellis post. This will produce two narrow trenches, each 16 feet long.

6. Measure and place marking posts at 4-foott and 12-foot intervals along the trenches between the trellis posts. Remove the marking posts and dig a hole about 12 inches deep at each marking post site.

7. Install metal support posts into each hole so that at least five feet of post protrudes above ground. These posts will support your grape vine plantings.

8. Run a length of wire along each trench about 30 inches above the ground. Tie the wire tightly to one trellis post, then pull it along the trench to the first support post. Wrap the wire around the first support post, then pull it to the second support post.

9. Wrap the wire around the second support post. Pull it to the second trellis. Wrap the wire around the trellis post twice, then tie it and clip it.

10. Repeat those actions exactly to extend the wire along the second trench. You'll train the first vines that emerge from your grape plant to grow along these lower wires.

11. Run a second length of wire along the trenches about five feet above the ground. Secure the wire at each trellis post and at the metal support posts as you did with the lower-level wire. You will train the second-year growth on your grape vines to grow along these wires.

12. Improve the soil in the trenches with compost at the time you plant your grape vines. Plant the vines in the spring about six inches in front of each support post. In time, the vines will grow along the wires and form a canopy overhead.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to plant a larger arbor, just add support posts every eight feet. Install additional trellises every 15 to 20 feet to provide support for the arbor's overhead canopy.

References

• Cornell University Extension: Growing Grapes in Your New York Garden
• Texas A & M University Extension: Grape Arbors: New Interest in an Old Tradition
• Oregon State University Extension Service: Growing Grapes in Your Home Garden