Grape and kiwi trellis

New kiwi trellis

I've been tardy in writing about my third big project for the year. We had put in a large trellis across a flat area toward the bottom of our hill about 12 years ago. The north section was intended to support two grapevines and a row of raspberries. The smaller south section was for three hardy kiwi. The plants all did great - in fact, too great. The grapes eventually shaded out the raspberries and I rplanted new raspberries further down the slope last year. It's time to revise and replace the whole trellis.

Looking south - old grape trellis in January

Looking north - kiwi end of the old trellis in January

For the hardy kiwi, I looked at a lot of trellis and arch options and decided on a circular moon gate trellis. I like the shape and thought it would provide a nice entryway to a path down the hillside. We installed it last month and just got the kiwi vines tied on. The kiwi that is furthest away is the male and grows more aggressively. I might need to add a connecting trellis to keep it under control - or prune it heavily each winter. All three of the kiwi were very slow to get established but now seem to produce more fruit if I cut them back.

New kiwi trellis

The grapes are fairly simple, we just need to move the posts and wires a few feet further west; they're east of the plants now because they were centered between the grapes and raspberries. That should pull the grape vines to the west and keep them from growing over the sunny hillside that is just below (east). The cross bars aren't needed anymore, it'll just be straight posts.

We've got the old trellis taken down but haven't put up the new posts yet. Mostly I'm just procrastinating on getting out the post hole digger because I remember what a pain the holes for original posts were to dig. I'm amused that the grapes are standing on their own with no support right now, after I cut them all the way back this winter. I did the same last winter and see above for how wild the vines grew in one year.

Looking north

I also need to cover the area under and around the grapes to kill off the weeds and then find groundcover plants. I have a few native wild ginger planted by the larger grape now, testing to see how that will do. This hillside gets full sun with no water (drip line for the fruit), but the grapes create a huge shady area in the summer.

Looking south - grapes pruned, trellis in progress

The new raspberries that I planted down the hill last spring are taking over already!

New row of raspberries, planted last year