When your grapevine cuttings arrive, however you choose to find them, whether that be by harvesting cuttings from a friend with their own grapevines, or purchasing them online from a plant seller, you’ll want to do so in a cool, wet season like fall or winter.

This will give your rootless grapevine cuttings plenty of time to grow roots with all the naturally occurring rain, reduce the amount of labor needed to keep them watered, and keep the cuttings moist (and alive) until they are able to make those roots.

Though ultimately, it is up to you to decide on whether you’d prefer to start your grapevines in planters and then transplant them into your edible landscape or food garden later, I recommend propagating your grapevine cuttings directly where you want them to grow into full grapevines.

As the new roots on your grapevines will be fragile and small for awhile, if you transplant the new grapevine plants, you risk throwing them into shock and killing your new plants.

Some excellent places to start your grapevine cuttings are along fences and gates, near arbors, next to strong, ornamental trees which can be used as grapevine trellises later, near outdoor staircases the railing can also be used as a grapevine trellis.

After deciding the placement of your grapevines, you’ll want to take a pair of pruners or a sharp knife and scratch off the bark layer of your grapevine cuttings on the bottom of the cuttings (when you are looking at the cuttings, the little nodes will be angled upward, which is how you know that your cutting is right side up). Scratch gently until the cambium layer (will be a bright green) of the cutting is exposed along the cutting, the length of the two bottommost nodes.

Using a sturdy stick or a dibbler, poke a hole in the place where you are placing your grapevine cutting and wiggle it to loosen the soil a bit for the new roots. You can then slide the grapevine cutting into the hole.

Your grapevine cuttings can be marked with large sticks or actual plant markers so that you can come find them again. In the coming months, you can top dress your future grapevine with coffee grounds, tea leaves, or mulch to build up additional nutrients for your plant.

Here are more zero-waste methods of improving soil fertility for your edible landscape.