Grape cultivation

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 01:12 PM

I have a large, and probably very old, grape vine growing on the west edge of the pasture/orchard and think I ought to cultivate it to see if it will produce something usable. Here's some photos of the vine.

As you can see, it's almost two inches thick, and pretty healthy. I'm really interested in seeing what kind of grapes it produces.

It goes well up into a smallish Maple, and a pretty tall Tulip Poplar, most of the grapes are probably up there.

I'm wondering if I can prune it back in the fall, and bring it out from where it's growing, not dig it up, but just reroute it out to a trellis where it can be controlled and the grapes harvested. Anyone done this with wild grapes before?

kjb · kjb's Garage

you'll only get fruit on second year wood. prune in late winter / early spring, while the plant is still dormant. Leave 2-3 buds on last year's canes.

good luck!

RPKESQ · 06-13-2006, 02:07 PM

Yes, you can prune it back and retrain it. Grape arbors! now that is just a very good thing. And you can always make some wine, or wine vinegar, grape jam, grape ice cream, or bakery goods. Let me know if you need some recipes!

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RPKESQ
Yes, you can prune it back and retrain it. Grape arbors! now that is just a very good thing. And you can always make some wine, or wine vinegar, grape jam, grape ice cream, or bakery goods. Let me know if you need some recipes!

Wine vinegar, now that sounds like just the thing. I don't think the wine would be particularly good, but first I need to see the grapes, for taste and size.

Recipes, send a few, use the email feature please.

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by procon
Pat,

That appears to be what I call Fox Grapes, small Grapes & very sour. As children we use to cut the vine & use as a rope swing.

I did research on them for the last hour and Fox or Foxy grapes seems to be a generic term for most native southern grapes other than muscadines such as Scuppernongs.

If they respond anything like wild blackberries do; if you cultivate the vine, the grapes (or berries) get much larger and the sweetness will improve based on how much sun exposure I can provide. I did this at my house in Winston-Salem. I had a vacant lot next door that was literally full of blackberries. I mowed about half of them down, leaving the others in rows that I could reach from both sides. I then mulched the remaining berries, added a touch of fertilizer, and the combination of additional nitrogen, additional soil moisture retention from the mulch, and lots of sunlight reaching the plants, I harvested 40-50 pounds of berries the following year, and every year after. The only reason I've planted domesticated blackberries here is I wanted the thornless type. I don't have a shortage of wild ones either, though, but I'm not cultivating them.

What I think I'll do, next winter, is get as far up in the trees the grape vine is in as I can and cut it enough to bring it down, then run it out towards the pasture, that would have it running west to east, and since the pasture is a southern slope, the vine should get a lot of sun next spring. Then when the grapes are ripe, I'll know if I have something worth fooling with any longer.

I sure hate to remove such an "old boy" vine like that, but the location it's in will be cleared of trees in about two-three years to expand the pasture to the edge of a small valley, or gulley. The gulley is where the shooting range is going, at some point, but that's for another thread.

juanbenae · juanbenae's Garage

i grow grapes as a hobby and am getting better at it. you actually save your trimmins and put them in water and they will sprout ruts. it's magic!

actually i would just start with a new table grape plant and read up a bit. i started w/o much reading or info and kinda floundered in that i did not let them get tall enough before training them out. now they droop down and touch my lawn and the dirt below them and i have a heck of a time keeping the dry mold off them. i am making a better effort this year to keep them up off the ground. last years crop was a wash-out, although the year before that i got like 50 lbs of purple table grapes from them. they were/are very good.

i have taken a few snips from my pops vines and have a couple yellow table grape plants starting. i am following better instruction on getting these shaped right to avoid the ground contact. the purple ones are actually fronting my house on a wrought iron fence. not to sound too gay (not that there is anything wrong) the grapes kinda got me into planting fruit trees around my yard, i have gone with a blood orange citrus, a nectarine, a lemon, a plum, and then of course there is the hemp i farm to make my homemade rope.....

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by procon
Just spoke to a higher authority, my Dad.
According to him, the small sour Grapes that I described are called Possum Grapes & are fit for... well a Possum.
However, if they're indeed Fox Grapes, Dad says they make an excellent jelly.

Yes, I've seen some of those vines with grapes just barely larger than a grape seed in a Concord grape.

Hopefully, that big vine has the larger fox grapes on it.

We'll see I suppose.

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by k911sc
i grow grapes as a hobby and am getting better at it. you actually save your trimmins and put them in water and they will sprout ruts. it's magic!

actually i would just start with a new table grape plant and read up a bit. i started w/o much reading or info and kinda floundered in that i did not let them get tall enough before training them out. now they droop down and touch my lawn and the dirt below them and i have a heck of a time keeping the dry mold off them. i am making a better effort this year to keep them up off the ground. last years crop was a wash-out, although the year before that i got like 50 lbs of purple table grapes from them. they were/are very good.

i have taken a few snips from my pops vines and have a couple yellow table grape plants starting. i am following better instruction on getting these shaped right to avoid the ground contact. the purple ones are actually fronting my house on a wrought iron fence. not to sound too gay (not that there is anything wrong) the grapes kinda got me into planting fruit trees around my yard, i have gone with a blood orange citrus, a nectarine, a lemon, a plum, and then of course there is the hemp i farm to make my homemade rope.....

I saved a spot above the blackberry/raspberry arbors for grapes, should I decide to grow a few. I'd plant some of the "good" domestic types there. Here's what my arbors look like now. Another cable goes above the two that are there, but the berry canes aren't long enough to reach passed the second cable yet.

Here's a few green berries on the thornless canes, not bad for being put in the ground for the first time this year, but next year should be very productive.

Looking just about due south, you can see the four rows of the berry arbors (or trellis'). The trees in the containers will be planted later this month or so, two figs and four citrus trees. You should also be able to see the amount of slope the orchard has, the area reserved above the berries for grape trellis' can be seen, just haven't built them yet. Your comments on training them hight enough was good info, seems to me that I've seen grape trellis' 5-6 feet high with the lowest wire at least 3 feet above the ground.

Superman · 06-13-2006, 03:39 PM

The house I bought in August has two HUGE grape plants out back. they are trained to lay on a couple of fences and some overhead clothesline structures. We harvested probably twenty or thirty gallons of concord grapes last year, and many more were available. This year, I am going to get serious. The jelly my sister made is incredible.

Seahawk · 06-13-2006, 03:46 PM

Your place is coming along...nice work.

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 03:47 PM

I was just reading today that if you don't prune a grape vine back every year, they only produce a big crop every other year.

Any how, I forgot to put in one more photo, the Key Lime has flowers on it already, appropriate since they bear fruit all year long, but I was surprised that it would happen this soon after transplanting.

juanbenae · juanbenae's Garage

said vines

fastpat · 06-13-2006, 04:26 PM

Looks like about three healthy vines there, and that's area looks similar to my old neighborhood in Fremont.

I had a Key Lime in the backyard that did very well if you fertilized it every other month, good juice which we substituted for lemon juice quite often.

fastpat · 06-14-2006, 12:45 PM

Found an interesting web page on native grapes, including the fact that of the 50 species on the planet, half of them are native to North America, and no one knows why.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/natives.asp

fastpat · 06-14-2006, 01:01 PM

I think I have them growing here, but I'm not absolutely certain. I do have Hickory growing here in several places, the nuts are all around them.

If you have time, could you photograph the leaves on them, I might be able to recognize what I have here. If I don't have any, I'd like some. I have a lot of Maples growing here, maybe we can trade?

Any other trees you want? American Holly, have lots of those too.

I cleared the pines from around that large grape vine, I'll clean up the groung around it tomorrow, leaving the natural mulch in place.

This year I'll just let the vines do their thing, and see what I get this fall.

fastpat · 06-14-2006, 04:03 PM

Great, I'll await your info.

fastpat · 06-16-2006, 02:59 PM

Project Vitis-Rescue is well and truly underway, I had to fell three trees; all of which were going to be cut in the near future anyway, but had to be brought down to get the vine out of them.
This is probably the main stem, about 75 feet overall, which I'll leave full length until next November or so.

Here's a typical "bunch" of grapes. When a grape vine isn't cultivated it shunts so much of the available carbohydrates to leaf and vine growth production that the grapes are substanially reduced in number. That, hopefully, will change as I prune it correctly this winter.

A typical leaf, while I've not made a 100% positive identification, I think it's a Riverbank Grape, Vitis Riparia.