RedSun,

Ison's Nursery has a great grapes selection in the link below. Read up and pick what interest you.

Tony

Here is a link that might be useful: Grapes

I'm not sure how much is too much, but I planted 7 vines this spring. They've all done well and I even got one bunch of grapes from the Jupiter.

Faith
Joy
Gratitude
Hope
Jupiter
Neptune
Somerset

The first 4 are new UoA varieties. I also have Mars (very disease resistant) and planted a few Muscadines (from Isons) last fall.

I think Z6 may be a bit too far north for Muscadines (Ison's specialty). Mine came through OK, as I covered them with straw. But my father did the same and neither vine lived. And once they grow a bit more, I won't be able to take them off the trellis to cover.

Based on reports from others on the board and my own excellent experience, I heartily recommend DoubleA vineyards. Here's a pic of 3 vines I got from them this spring (Gratitude, Jupiter, and Faith, from left to right). The top bar is about 6' high.

This post was edited by bob_z6 on Sat, Aug 30, 14 at 11:49

When the vines are productive, I think 8 grape vines may be too much as table grapes. 4 may be just fine.

I can either reduce the # of the vines, or plant some non-table vines. Still do not think I'll be making wine though....

RedSun:

No need to worry if your birds are like ours. They eat 99.9% before they're ripe. If the coons don't get there first....:-(

It's also possible that you'll thin out the plants. Maybe you won't like the taste of some, while others may not grow/produce well. I figure it is safer to over-plant a bit, as I've got a better chance of an optimal outcome.

My favorite is red canadice though we cannot grow some of the grape options you have available. The sugar content gets very high and the skin is not tough like so many grapes. They are truly delicious but only moderately disease resistant at best so they require additional spraying.

Here is a link that might be useful: red canadice

Yes, the birds can be discouraged by paper bags on the bunches, but the raccoons and deer will just tear through them and eat the grapes. IMHO grapes are worth growing only in a tall pergola, near the house to discourage deer, and with high voltage around each post.

Schlabach's Nursery is good for your area. You have to order a catalog through the mail and send 2 or 3 dollars. They don't send the new catalogs til after Christmas. No website. Address is 2784 Murdock Rd.; Medina, NY 14103. They also have other fruit trees and berry bushes. Here is the grape page from their catalog:

The grapes will be planted inside 7' tall deer fence, along with the soft berry patch. I may put on a bird netting if manageable.

Back in 2012 I added: Candice (x2), Concord Seedless(x3), Himrod, Niagara(x2), and Mars. Last year I added Reliance. I used plant tags for all of my 2012 grapes but the permanent ink apparently wasn't permanent and washed off all of the tags. From memory and the process of elimination, I think I have worked out all of my grape vines.

I just purchased from what was offered locally so I ended up with most of my grape varieties being slip skin, which as mentioned elsewhere in the forum, isn't the greatest for fresh eating. Based on research and forum feedback, I'm going to pull a couple of low performing slip-skin vines and replace them with Jupiter, Gratitude and Hope.

Choosing varieties for household use, I'd try to spread out the harvest times for the fresh eating varieties, so look at ripening times. Then also pick out one or two vines for 'bombproof' disease resistance and fruit qualities more suited to processing. Some varieties are good eating and also can be used for winemaking- Swenson Red is a good dual purpose red grape.

I planted several concord-type varieties this spring. One of them, a van buren, had two small bunches of grapes that were ripe today (Aug 31). I was happy to have some concord type grapes this early. None of the other varieties fruited yet, so that's all I can report on. I love concord grape flavor, and these were very good. Also, I didn't think I'd get any fruit this year so I didn't bother spraying yet, and these grapes were disease free. I'm not going to count on that in the future, but it was a nice surprise. I got them from Schlabach's as a substitute for an out of stock Worden.