Usually it may be best to cut it all back to about 1-2 feet. The roots are long, and so you need to try and get as many as possible. This should be done in spring and then hope that it will start sending out new greens. Usually most grape varieties are hardy enough in their second or third year to survive. Most need very little care except maybe some 'transplant type' fertilizer to reduce any shock.

Thank you for responding eastern Mass (nice area, been there many times). The grapes I am transplanting are Concord, and I heard that it takes many years for them to fruit. If it doesn't make it I am back to square one. I am wondering if I am better off buying new grapes and transplanting them in the new spot. Do you know of any sweet grapes that will fruit a year after I plant them? These will be for snacking and not for wine.

I had a a rare, unsual white seedless grape that bore a small cluster its first full year, but that was 2 years ago and I have not seen any more fruits since. Most grapes, once established in good soil, with lots of roots, will grow vines very quickly. I have found that Concord leads the pack as far as growth speed. I don't think you will have grapes the year after being planted, but then again, it did happen to me just once. I have since removed all of my seed type Concords and still see an occaisonal new sprout showing up where the originals grew. Its hard to kill a big, well established plant as its roots can send up new growth anywhere it likes. The reason I removed the Concords was because they were originally growing just 5 feet from my 30+ year old blueberry bushes. Needless to say the blues didn't do very well and were constantly being 'attacked' by the grape vines. Since then, I have only been trying to grow seedless types of both white and red, but with limited success so far. I must admit that this past year, two of the new seedless varieties of grapes have put on about 10-15 feet of new vine, so I think they are finally headed for fruiting this year. My grapes don't start showing green growth until mid June, which seems to be late for grapes, but that may be the types I am now growing. Ive been reading about commercial grape growing and found that some growers use Gibberallic acid as a foliar spray to help increase the size of the grapes and clusters. I used this for the first time last year and it may be the reason I saw so much active growth. I will spray a couple of times this year as well. The only other problems I had was when, during winter, rabbits had chewed off a few of the vines near ground level. This had killed two plants. Since then, I have wrapped a piece of metal screening around each plant at ground level up to about 20 inches. It has kept any varmints away from chewing. As far as I know there are no varieties that will yield fruit their first year. Patience is needed! If it were asparagus, you would need maybe 3-4 years before a decent harvest can take place.

We are to get some grapes from a friend. Can we do it
this fall or wait till next spring? and what kind of soil, we have clay, and we have sand.
We also have all kinds of goat mulch, would this work? I know it works great in the garden.
Sandie