I often find myself wondering why more people here don’t grow grapes? Or maybe most of you do but there just isn’t a lot of discussion about them. I am just curious why on a site where people love fruit so much, grapes aren’t more popular.
To me, grapes are absolutely delicious, very easy to grow, require very little maintenance, and are highly productive. They also take up very little space…a little 8 ft by 4 foot strip can produce all the grapes a family could eat fresh. They ripen at a time of year, at least for me, when most other fruits have finished and others haven’t come in.
I grow 6 varieties, some green, purple, and “black” (very dark blue) and they all taste different but really good. Every time I get home I walk over and pick a bunch of grapes to eat as I wonder through my orchard. I enjoy them very much. I also boil them up in water to make a very strong grape juice concentrate that I seal in a jar. It doesn’t have to be refrigerated and whenever I’m ready I just ad the quart jar to a gallon of water and have the best 100% natural grape juice you ever tasted!
I severely prune my vines in late winter, and I spray myclobutanil 2-3 times in spring and summer and that is IT. Birds get some but not enough that I don’t still get all I want. Grapes are also one of the fastest fruits from planting until production, which can even be the same year on large potted vines and within 2-3 years you can harvest a good deal of fruit. Plants are cheaper than trees, too. There also seem to be grapes for almost all zones in the USA.
It’s hard for me to think of many disadvantages with grapes, and there are countless positive things about them. So for folks who enjoy eating fresh fruit, I’d have thought a lot more fruit growers would be raising them. Today as I walked around enjoying a bunch of tasty grapes, I started wondering about why I dont see more discussions here about grapes and decided I’d just ask about it. So how many grow them, and those that don’t, why not?
My grape vine is 6 years old and has only given me a handful of grapes. I think grapes are very hard to grow. This year I gave up trying to grow them organically. And finally decided to spay immunox against the diseases. It got hit hard anyway. 2 times wasn’t enough clearly. I’ll add another immunox spray next time and try to keep it protected from the birds and JBs.
I learned a few hard lessons @thecityman about grapes. The first lesson I learned is some grapes though delicious eg red Candice are a problem in my area. You can grow them and I did for over 10 years but the first black rot I ever saw was on them. It took me several years and lots of captan and immunox to completely eradicate black rot. Once the black rot was eradicated and the red canafice died back due to the cold winter it was painfully obvious to me none of my other grapes typically suffer from it unless I grow some more susceptible varieties. Concords in my dry climate don’t have huge problems with fungal diseases. Typically most years concord can be grown spray free which is a huge advantage to me in terms of both time, quality of product, and money.
You either aren’t severely pruning the vines or have the wrong grape for your area. I have 3 year vines 5 families couldn’t eat all the grapes. To get any grapes you must prune as the fruit is on new wood. Muscadines - mrtexascitrus
Sheridan is a late Concord type that was disease free for me…before I moved 30+ years ago. Moore’s Diamond is a better grape than Niagara, and makes a decent wine. Or white grape juice. . I am currently growing no grapes at all, as my one little guy from Stark Bros. died…and the replacement they sent died. 2017.
Black rot is absolutely a factor. I grew grapes for 5 years before it showed up, and the year it came I lost almost my entire crop. But @scottfsmith told me to spray immunox (Myclobutanil)a few times (I sprayed 6 times the first year but now I’m down to 3-4 times) and it was one of the most impactful sprays Itreatments I’ve ever seen- completely wiped out all traces.
ANd please don’t get the impression that I’m bragging by saying grape growing is easy for me…I honestly don’t do anything complicated or that I wasn’t told to do by someone else. Again, all I really do is prune (hard, like 90% of the vines) and spray them 3-4 times and that is it. Birds do get a fair amount, but as the vines get thick and cover them,birds don’t really get a huge percentage and I get so many it doesn’t matter. Here are a few picks of my vines and some random shots of the grapes on them:
my father had 2 arbors of seeded concords that he never sprayed and rarely pruned. they got a fresh top dressing of manure in spring but that was it. had so many he would trade for other fruits. love their rich taste!
I do almost nothing on my grapes, they get tank leftovers when spraying apples with myclobutanil and its 1-2 times per year at most. The main problem I have is birds, they will take every single grape if I don’t bag clusters. This year I was too busy with deer sprays and didn’t bag the grapes so didn’t get any. I’ll still get muscadines, for some reason the birds don’t go after those.
We love growing grapes here in SoCal – for the most part an easy crop for us with the right varieties. There is so much fruit that I don’t even bother to protect it much from birds and don’t even mind the nightly visits from our neighborhood raccoon (our dog does not feel the same way). Our first real issue this year was with our backyard trellis that collapsed under the weight of the grapes (and wood rot). I had to take out my main section of grapes this year due to construction and miss not only the fresh grapes (Thomcord, Lakemont and Suffolk Red) but especially the raisins. Too good.
I got my first grapes this year, after having to move the vine last year, and the year before a bunny eating it to the ground. I am surprised it has survived!
But, I was disappointed, as the fruit were slip skin, filled with seeds, and sour. To be fair, this plant was the first thing I bought after I got a house with a yard, and decided to garden. I had zero clue what I was doing. I promptly lost the tag, but it’s ended up being an unremarkable variety anyhow.
Point being, anyone have any recommendations for a seedless table grape for zone 4? Does such a thing exist?
Which northern-hardy, seedless grapes that don’t have slip-skins that need to be spit out are worth growing? Wife and kid love grapes, but would never touch one with seeds or tough skin that needed to be spit out.
I’ve always had intentions to buy at least Reliance grape. I noted that it got good reviews by even California standards (skillcult).
I have grown grapes longer than any other fruit. like 40 years. But that was a concord which requires no work. I have a couple others now. They also require little help here in MI. I spray them once a year with sulfur. No other problems but some fungal issues. Well only one year and the spray eliminated it 100%.
I can tell you that of the 6 varieties I grow, reliance is my best tasting and also the texture is better. On the downside, for reasons only Heaven may know, both birds and bugs prefer it 10 to one over all my other varieties, so it is less productive than my others. But its a good grape for sure.
While everyone here is talking about grapes, how do you all eat slip skin grapes? I just sort of squeeze down on them with my mouth and let the little ball of pulp with the seed in the middle shoot out and I swallow that, then I spit the skin out. So honestly the only part I taste is the little juice between the outer skin and the soilid, jelly like center. If you bite down on the center part they are too sour for me. But that juice that surrounds the center pulp and seeds is wonderful. I often eat enormous numbers of grapes this way and never have any digestive problems, but I suspect those with diverticulitis couldn’t tolerate a lot of slip skin grapes? ANyway, is this what most of you do? BTW, I even have one seedless slip-skin but I hae to eat it the same way because the center pulp is too sour.
after 4 years, my arbor grape decided to fruit. there were more than 24 bunches. i thinned half.
on the high plains the air is very dry. i thot disease would be no problem.
but all the grapes were tiny n many bunches turned into raisens before ripening.
i had no bird problems because my cats took to lounging around on top of the arbor, in hope of an avian meal.
but it;s clear that grapes are hard to grow, when one can;t even ID the disease that hits them.
