Robert,

Thanks for the grape report. They do require constant attention and massive amounts of pruning. Also, of course, they are prone to so many diseases and that generally means you have to spray them a lot.

I cannot even tell you how many people have planted grapes here in my county (including several folks who made a massive financial investment trying to put in the beginnings of a small vineyard) and have given up in 3 or 4 years because of the huge amount of spraying and pruning needed in order to succeed.

I wish I had time to give grapes and some of the pickier fruits the time they need, but as you noted above, my philosophy is that with a large garden, I have to stick to low-maintenance plants. That philosophy helps me keep my sanity.

Recently, an older gentleman (in his late 80s or early 90s) showed me a huge area of wild grapes growing near his home here and they were just growing all over and covering everything....trees, fencelines, etc. He said that when these wild grapes ripen in late-August through early-September, people pick them by the 5-gallon-bucketful to make wine. Well, I tasted one of those little wild grapes and they were the most sour, vile-tasting thing I've ever had in my life. It is discouraging that the grapes with great flavor are so hard to grow, and the wild grapes that grow well with no care at all taste just horrible. I can't imagine they make a wine that is drinkable!

You have to choose your battles, and grapes are a battle I don't care to fight....although I surely would love to grow them here. Maybe I'll plant grapes after Tim retires in a few years and is around full-time to help with the garden.

Have you ever tried Muscadine grapes? Since they're native to the south, maybe they wouldn't be as high maintenance? That's just a guess on my part though.

Dawn

Wow, you really tried to tackle a monumental task in
growing grapes, and I truly admire an adventurous spirit!

I tried to grow one vine once upon a happy, innocent time, when I knew absolutely the bare minimum about gardening and growing anything, including Grapes, or Vitis species, only to fail miserably.

Since then I have learned enuff to know that they take way too much care and maintenance, pruning and trellising, insect and disease control, than I want to devote to them, or anything else for that matter. Heck, I'm doing good to get my tomatos staked!

I do grow Virginia Creeper and Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (I think the name has been changed in the last couple years or so). But, I grow them for the caterpillars you speak of. Grapes are a fantastic larval host plant for several species of Sphinx Moth, and also the Eight-Spotted Forester and Grapevine epeminous (sp?). I have raised Eumorpha sphinx, Darapsus sphinx, Amphion floridensis sphinx, and am waiting for a couple more to show up in the future, I hope. So, the point is, I can't imagine growing grapes for production without some kind of insect control, since it is a very, very popular larval host for several moths. And, the birds love the fruit, too. Good wildlife food source.

Muscadines are probably a better bet, but you need 2 or more cultivars for pollination. Also, I read somewhere that you should remove the flowers in the 2nd year. Don't hold me to it cuz I can't remember where I saw it. But, it seems logical for most fruiting plants, so you can obtain good root growth and top growth on the plants before allowing them to expend the energy it takes for them to produce fruit. I did that with my blueberries. It's soooooo hard to wait!

Good luck and keep us posted.

Susan

Big grape grower here. LOL I have one vine and it only gets pruned because it crawls over the gate and weaves its way into the chain link. If I didn't cut it back, I couldn't open the gate. Every year it looks beutiful and then the Japanese Beetles hit and eat every leaf which opens it up and makes it very visable for the birds to see their snacks. There are a number of commercial vinyards in this area, so I'm sure they spray....a lot.

I'm also a casual big box grape grower. I never spray, and this is the only year they have really struggled with the heat. I was away the two hottest weeks of summer and the difference when I came home was dreadful. I prune both the vines and the baby grape bunches. I try to leave 3 or 4 bunches per stem. Time consuming, and I am not diligent.

I have two concords that grow and produce well except they do not ripen evenly because of our heat, so I eventually give up picking because it is so labor intensive to get a few ripe grapes among the never-ripening greens. I'm thinking of pulling them up. I like them because they screen my neighbor's extra toilet he may use "some day" and keeps stashed behind his shed.

I have planted two seedless white grapes and neither turned out to be white grapes. They don't produce much and I let the birds have them.

I planted one Chardonnay from an herb festival and it never got bigger than the day I planted it.

I have one Canadice - a red-blue grape. It grows ok, produces ok and handled the heat just fine and never has any problems. Its in its 4th or 5th year. I think I will replace everything with more Canadice's

All told, I get about 40 pounds of usable grapes that I freeze and as I have time I make jelly.

Betty,

Well, if you're getting 40 lbs. of usable grapes, you're doing a lot better than anyone else I know in Oklahoma. : )

Jo had lovely grapes this spring, but they got anthracnose which ruint her crop.

I have native grapes coming up all over the fencelines around my veggie garden, for which I blame the birds. I keep cutting them back hard and they come back every year. There's no way I can dig them out without destroying the garden fence, so I'm stuck with them. This year they would have had grapes on a portion of the plants that were trying to take over the garden's entry arbor where I grow coral honeysuckle for the hummingbirds, but I pruned them back to the ground and pruned them back repeatedly as they attempted to regrow. If only the cultivated grapes I'd like to grow would grow as well as the bird-planted native grapes.

Dawn

Betty:

Thanks for that info. It is somewhat encouraging. Perhaps much of my trouble this year was the heat? Believe it or not, I planted my grapes more because of the foliage than anything else. I will research the Canadice and give it a try.

My nephew says I use grape jelly like money, LOL. I'm always trading it for something like old-school pickle relish or as hostess gifts.

I have one wild grape that comes up in the concords, and I try to keep it cut to the ground but boy it wants to live and is very sneaky.

I grow them on a chain link fence, have one strand of soaker hose there, neither spray nor feed. So benign neglect all around.

Dawn, you have a good memory!

I have two vines in the ground that I planted last year. One of them was going absolutely bonkers, and then fungus hit. I probably had 70 clusters on that one vine. Of course, I know nothing about pruning them, and even after reading up I am still confused! I ate 7 grapes this year, LOL.

I plunked a 3rd grape vine in the ground a few months ago, from Gurneys or one of those other cheapie mail order sites. I prune it...but I am 100% positive I am not doing it right. I let the main stem grow to 3' high...that was my trunk. After that, I just started removing random leaves and stems so that they look evenly spaced, hahahaha. The funny thing is, it was a bare root plant just planted 3 or so months ago...and I have a big old bunch of grapes growing. I thought from reading that grapes only grew on 2 year old vines, so have no idea what happened. They are getting big, and with any luck they will ripen before the frost hits.

Jo

Robert,

Here's a link to the wine festival this coming weekend at Tres Suenos Winery. It is not terribly far from you, perhaps a half hour. If I were able, I'd go just to hear Edgar Cruz.

Seedmama

Here is a link that might be useful: Tres Suenos Wine Festival

I found this thread while searching for pruning info. I have planted four seedless grape vines (concord, himrod, and canadice) over wooden pergola two years ago, this is their third year, we have harvested few bunches himrod and canadice last year. Now I need to prune some canes so that it will uniformly spread across the pergola. here is two pis taken last summer;

Chandra that is beautiful!

Do you think your wife would mind if I came and lived with you? ;)

Jo

I've tried to grow grapes for 5 years, seedless Concords and Thompson.
The first year they did real good, 2nd year not so much, the vines always looked pretty good but not the grapes; they shriveled up like raisins.

From the third year on it was horrible.
I finely determined they had black spot and tried different types of organic spray for three years, nothing really worked very well, and you had to spray them at the right times throughout the year to even make a small difference,
you even had to keep the ground cleaned up under them to keep the spoors from the shriveled up graped from spreading.

We decided not to use any of the chemical sprays that you can buy for black spot, because even then you had to spray them religiously throughout the year, it just wasn't worth it so I pulled them up this last winter.

Our family really loves grapes and we really tried hard,But' from now on' only low maintenance plants in my garden.
James.

LOL Jo, my wife is already worried when I received couple of kidnap threats and another one is a relative of my colleagues at office asked whether I quit university job and work with him for gardening business. Not only my wife worried, but my boss at office is also worried after hearing so he promoted me to the manager position so that I will not leave my regular job! But gardening is fun and thrilling.

James, I did notice any pests and disease in last two years expect some tomato horn worms eating some loves. I never used any chemicals, but I was using water misting system under the pergola to cool the sitting area in summer. I was also using tirki citronella torches on regular basis after the dark to repel insects and give wild look to backyard. We also cook outside (spicy food), so patio/pergola become our main living area from Spring to Fall. May be all these effects might have help grapes grow nice and healthy. But only time will tell how long they will grow like that... lets see how they will do this year - Chandra

Although not a true grape, the cultivated varities of muscadines are pretty close. There are self polinating varities and most of them have edible skin.I dont think they have seedless varities yet.

Isons, have 2yr potted vines also. So the wait would be a little less then say, a 1 yr spindly vine.

They are a little more resistant to the diseases that seem to plague grapes.

I have a few of the Ison varitey and usually get fruit every yr. Even last yr through all the heat and drought i managed to get a gallon or 2. I plan on adding more vines this yr and pull up the grapes that have not done anything. I like muscadines better anyway.

I dont have the time to do everything reccomended so they have to be tough to survive here. They also dont like wet feet so to speak.