Kris, I am using a crude trellis this year. Before woven wire hoops, they require support of stakes well driven in and have used tie wire or heavy cable ties as fasteners.
One thing that will help is to use woven wire with 4 X 4 or larger spacing. Mine is graduated up to 6in spacing, it is a non-climbing goat wire, easy to handle and structurally strong to the eventual weight.
You need to be able to get your hands through it, one side of mine is on posts, the other side is leaning in to the top of 3 strand ss cable.
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@krismoriah
5 feet welded or woven wire is fine since grapes are not terribly heavy. Use plenty of good strong posts. Hardy Kiwis tear a fence down fast so use something much stronger for them. Grew my grapes about 4 feet apart because my soil is clay but for most people that is between 6 -10 feet apart. Concord and seedless concord do best here.
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Looking back over a lifetime of success growing fruits and vegetables testifies to my methods here in Kansas working. The world is a changing place. They often speak of feeding people on what we fed our chickens and pigs. I encourage all of you to become food independent. I’m praying blessings for you and your families. My thoughts or prayers won’t help without sweat.
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Sometimes, we commit to a path that doesn’t work. I know @39thparallel and i both wasted 10+ years of our life growing kiwis in Kansas. The thing is eventually we will succeed we think and yet we spent over 10% of our lifetime failing. I ripped mine out. Mike ripped his out 7 or 8 years after i ripped mine out. I said the same about pawpaw and yet i am successful at growing pawpaw in a place previously thought impossible to grow them. Genetics is everything. My first honeyberries failed but i will now try again and see if i learned from my mistakes.
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I would like to try kiwis here too still even if there are no successes yet, but I think it might be worth trying to grow out a whole bunch of seeds.
Some of my honeyberries are taking off for me (beast, beauty, blizzard). A couple (beast and blizzard) plants have already put on over 18" of growth! I planted them last year and nothing grew any last year. I put a few in three different spots: in the open, in a opening in the windbreak that had morning and afternoon shade and on the east side of our tin shed in the gravel border. All of the plants dwindled and died in the winter with only a few that woke up this spring, but then still dwindled and died, except the one in the gravel on the east side of the shed.
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@KS_razerback
Some areas like Manhatten, K.C. , Topeka, and Lawrence tend to be wet even when we are dry in the country. 80% of the state is dry in general so thankfully most of us are in the NE corner that gets around 34" on avg. Some years 22" and others 40"+
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Our average here is 31" or 32" of yearly precipitation, though a lot of the soil (depends in the location) here takes well over a week of drying after a rain to not feel like mud when digging even when it’s not a spring spot.
Oh, the honeyberries next to the shed don’t get water from the eave. I wonder if lime is what honeyberries like?
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300 pears and 100 grapes need to go into the ground this year. This might be one of my best years.
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