Kill or cure.

We have four grape vines in the front garden which provide a nice shady walkway from the gate to the house, but  they don't produce many grapes any more.  The last time we can remember  having a really good crop was way back in 2005.  Every year we prune,  they flower and set bunches of grapes,   but then dry up before they get plump.  In fact one year we didn't bother to prune just to see if that made any difference but no.

Everybody here is an expert  - no matter what you're doing the comments will be something along the lines of " you don't want to do it like that".   Manolo showed us how to prune our vines when we came here and after he died we pruned as shown,  then along came Manolo's brother Estaban  who said "you don't want to do it like that" and cut each branch down exactly one bud shorter.

Fernando said only to leave three branches off each vine, then each branch from  that must be cut down to 3 or 4 buds.  Manolo used to say about 3 buds,  but his brother cuts them shorter leaving only one bud - or two at most.   Which way is right?  All we know is that we are not getting many grapes and you can't make wine without grapes!   Luckily we have grapes from other neighbours vines for wine.




So today was kill or cure day,  we've done a combination of everyone's advice from over the last 8 years.  John did the cutting as my pruning last year didn't make a difference,  hopefully this will do the trick.