How to grow grapes at home?

Despite the fact that grapes seem like a difficult crop to grow, they can be cultivated even at home. A plant planted in a pot is capable of performing only a decorative function, or it can additionally delight the owners of the apartment with sweet fruits.

Not all grapes can be grown under home conditions - only certain varieties are suitable for this purpose. It is desirable to give preference to undersized and medium-sized varieties that are early maturing, and therefore can produce a crop a couple of times a year.

So, on the balcony or loggia, you can arrange varieties "Talisman", "Laura", "Muscat room", "Victoria", "North", "Chaush", "Taezhny" and other representatives of the intensive type of fruiting. For beginner growers, it is especially recommended varieties "Rusbol" and "Elegy", which tolerate any (including not too correct) pruning, and also successfully resist diseases and insects.

Optimal conditions for growing a culture provide it with protection from infections and accelerated development. At the time of the growing season, the grapes must be in an apartment or house, as it requires a temperature that does not go beyond the boundaries of 19-25 degrees. In winter, planting can be rearranged on a glazed balcony, provided that the temperature in space is maintained from 0 to 10 degrees. The culture does not like sharp temperature changes. The humidity level should be very high - at least 70%, otherwise the vines will begin to dry out, and the likelihood of infection with a fungus and the appearance of a spider mite will rapidly increase. To prevent negative consequences, you should spray the plantings with warm water once a week, and in winter, additionally place a humidifier or bowls filled with liquid near the pot.

Cultivated grapes love light, and as a result, they should be grown either on the southern or southwestern windowsill. The wild variety is more comfortable in the shade, and a north or southeast facing window is more suitable. If the grower seeks to get a second crop, then in winter he will have to install fluorescent lamps at a distance of 20 centimeters from the plantings. It should be understood that the lack of lighting will not destroy the culture, but will prevent the setting of berries. However, the container containing the earth must be protected from direct sunlight.

Initially, homemade grapes require a small pot, but the size of the container will have to be increased with each subsequent year. The seedlings will fit perfectly in ordinary plastic cups, and the grown seedlings should be transferred to a container with a volume of 3-5 liters. Of course, a drainage layer must be formed in the tanks, and holes must be cut to remove excess irrigation. The soil for growing crops needs nutritious, loose and breathable. It is easy to buy it in the store, but you can also make it yourself.

In the first few years, a mixture of humus soil, river sand, turf and compost, taken in a ratio of 3: 1: 3: 2, is ideal for the culture. It is allowed to use a mix of peat, manure humus, sand from river beds, connected in the same amount. It will be possible to enrich the soil mixture with ash, superphosphate, urea, and potassium salt. Fine-grained expanded clay, crushed stone, pieces of ceramics or a special filler can be used as drainage.

It is customary to grow grapes in an apartment in two main ways. The first involves deepening the seeds extracted from the fruit into the ground, and the second - the use of cuttings that require further rooting. The seeds should be fairly large, brown in color and have a dense shell. The fruit from which the seeds are extracted must be ripe. It is important to understand that the process of growing vines from seeds takes a long time and allows harvesting only 6-7 years after planting. As a rule, the stone fruit method is used to obtain wild grapes, characterized by unpretentiousness and strong immunity.

The harvested bones must undergo certain procedures. First of all, calibration is carried out - sorting out seeds and eliminating all small, damaged or diseased specimens. Specimens with specks, mold marks or uneven color will also have to be removed. The material is then soaked in warm water for 30 minutes. Those instances that float must be thrown away immediately.

Disinfection of seeds is carried out within half an hour, for which they use hydrogen peroxide or a pale pink manganese solution. To stimulate the growth of bones, they should also be soaked for 8-12 hours in a stimulator - ready-made "Epine" or aloe juice. For hardening, the seeds are sent to the refrigerator for 3-4 weeks, not forgetting to clean them once a week under running water. The material will be germinated on a piece of moistened gauze in a plate covered with cling film and placed in a heated, lighted place. After planting seeds in the ground, they will need to be sprinkled with a thin layer of soil, moistened and tightened with polyethylene. The picking of grapes is carried out after the appearance of the first leaves.

The cutting method turns out to be much more convenient for use at home. Properly prepared vine fragments take root easily and delight with fruits already in the second or third year after planting. It is customary to buy twigs on the market or to cut them yourself with an indent from the end of the vine by 8-15 centimeters. Each involved cutting must have at least a couple of live buds. Both last year's branches and samples of this year can be applied. Everyone is pre-examined for infections, spots, wounds and other "problems".

At the preparation stage, the cuttings are soaked for a couple of hours in a pinkish manganese solution. Then they are rolled in sawdust, wrapped in cling film so that the ends are outside, and put into the refrigerator. Planting of grape cuttings is carried out in the spring. During storage, sawdust should be periodically checked and replaced with new ones when blackened.

Rooting of seedlings is carried out in mid-spring or early May. Before that, a part of the bark is cut off from the end of each branch. If a greenish layer is found under it, it means that the workpiece will definitely take root. Fragments of the vine are soaked for two days, after which they must be dried. The bottom of the glass is covered with a thick layer of gauze and sprinkled with crushed activated carbon or impregnated with a pale pink solution of potassium permanganate. It is also important to pour in enough liquid so that it only slightly covers the gauze.The stalk is placed in a filled container and closed with a half bottle or a plastic bag. As soon as its length increases by a couple of centimeters and roots sprout, it is time to transplant it into the ground.

Caring for homemade grapes is not particularly difficult.

While the growing season is in progress, the culture requires irrigation 1-2 times a week with settled water at room temperature. If the summer is especially hot, then you can increase the number of procedures. When the culture begins to bear fruit, watering is carried out less often - about once every 10 days. In winter, in a cool space, the plant is watered every two weeks, and in a heated room - the same way as at other times of the year.

The first fertilization is carried out with the onset of spring. It should contain potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus, for example: a mixture of a kilogram of chicken manure, 20 grams of potassium salts, 25 grams of superphosphate and 9 liters of liquid. The following dressings are carried out during the warmer months, but until the fruits reach their maximum size. It is important that potassium salts and phosphorus are present in the fertilizer. The fourth top dressing is applied at the maximum dimensions of the berries - it should be a preparation saturated with potassium and phosphorus, but not containing nitrogen. The final fertilization takes place in the fall: as a rule, a complex solution without nitrogen and chlorine is used.

Shrub formation is carried out in autumn or early spring. Only strong shoots should be left on each new branch. From each pair of branches, one vine remains unchanged, and the second is cut to 3 buds. Pruning of long vines is carried out after the end of fruiting.

Until the culture begins to bear fruit, the bush should be moved to a larger container every 12 months. They take it out of the container with a lump of earth, and then shake it off from the layer of the upper soil and old drainage. After the first fruiting, the vine is replanted every 2-3 years. For this, the plant is removed from the container and at least a third cleared of the earth. Damaged and diseased roots must be removed.