Backyard Grapes

Are there other members who happen to have grapes growing in their back yard? I have a 34 year old grape vine that are not table grapes. Grape itself is tart if not sour when ready to pick. The birds spit them out, too. The grape turns very purple and makes a lovely jam/jelly. I also made bigga (sour dough bread starter)

I'd like to learn how to really take care of this plant growing on a old trellis. How to prune it, etc. Mahalo!

I have three vines going. What USDA zone you in?

I have 2 Thompson Seedless

I have 2 seedless grapevines.

First time this year and I know nothing about grape vines. Planted a red seedless and a green seedless in late March. Then in late April I was given a Scuppernong vine which I had to transplant at the wrong time of year. It went into transplant shock and dropped all its leaves and flowers. I was planning to cut it way back so the roots could develop, but an older gentleman told me the grape would "bleed" if I cut it at this time of year. So I just left it alone and watered a lot. As of now there is new leaf growth and even some flowers. Pic taken May 27.



Kay

i had a home where I planted three grapevines and they all grew very well. But when my mother passed away, part of my grieving process was to move to her house, and I rented out my own house. My tenant cut the grapevines down to within 3" of the ground, and I thought they were ruined. However they came back even better than previously.

I received about two dozen hardwood Elvira grape vine cuttings for Christmas. I already have 5 Concord grape vines that I planted late last summer, so now I'm on grape overload. Two of my summertime neighbors have agreed to let me plant some in their yards. While searching how to do this I came across this wonderful video (at bottom of the article) that I just have to share with you guys. I have a feeling all of his videos will be great. So I'm heading out now, trowel & cuttings in hand, to play Johnny grape..uh...cuttings.
http://mikesbackyardnursery.com/2014/01/how-to-propagate-grapes-from-hardwood-cuttings/

Wow CC, that is a great article about propagating grape cuttings.  If you read down in the comments, he also refers you to other articles about propagating other things.

Yolos, I just found a directory at the tippy top of the page. http://mikesbackyardnursery.com/directory/
THAT should keep me busy for the weekend.

I don't know how this guy has time to do all that he does AND answer all those questions that are posted. So interesting.

OK, I just planted 9 grape cuttings at the neighbors & 7 in my garden. The rest I'll plant on the lattice at the office. With an 80% propagation rate, I may have success somewhere.

I live near Swansea South Wales in the UK &  have three vines ,  

One is cordoned against the front south facing wall of the bungalow.  It is now six years old , this year it has produced about 30 fist sized bunched of very sweet 1/3 of an inch diameter black grapes , most of which are seedless .


Though there have also been several bunches of 1/2 " plus diameter sized grapes ..it looks very promising for the future .
 
I've been training it along taut wires fixed to the wall on vine eye nails ,  are pruning them  so that there are two runners either side of the main stem .  Each runner about 15 inches apart & 13 feet long .
 Come spring I'll prune off all the excess growth so as to leave the currently showing  buds along the runners as well as giving the small foot print around the root a light feed of blood , fish & bone meal ( it's growing out of a 2 x2 foot square hole cut in four inch thick concrete )  .

The other two vines are also black grape vines that are four years old vines but are still being grown in two foot tall by two foot diameter tubs . Come spring these black grapes will be transplanted in to designed sites  in the rear gardens now that all my garden landscaping is totally complete.

I hope to grow these two vines over a series of overhead galvanised steel work at 2.4 mtrs high so that they help form a canopy of vines with grapes & leaves  .
 
Hopefully I'll still be around in 20 or so years time to see them , I expect that they will be really good producers for they will have grown deep down through  2 feet of topsoil into about four feet of blue clay and then into crumbling limestone bedrock that has plenty of clean water running through it.

 I think all three vines are  disease resistant Muller Thorgeau's or a similar name

do you have any photos of your vines, David?

Dave now has to brave the freezing cold damp weather , wrapped up like an Eskimo our hero dashes out to take photos ..back in a bit.

Our brave hero!

Arrraghhhh!

 T'was so cold and bone chilling whilst I popped out to take the piccies I couldn't stop shivering when I got back inside , I still felt like an ice cube 15 min later ,  so I nipped into bed under the duvet for 1/2 hr to warm up , then found my internet speed is so dismal I cant up load my pictures via photobucket.

 Seems that the idiots who blocked X Box & MS have cause mayhem all over the internet in general and it will stay like this for a few days till the dust settles.

   My internet speed for down loading is varying between 396 KB/s to 26 KB/s, predominately at the lower end and no amount of modem or computer cleaning out & rebooting will improve things

plantoid wrote:Photobucket uploads finally done .

This is the front south facing vine against the wet bungalow wall  ( Picture of our building materials & rubbish included for free  ) 

 The vine is in the left hand tub  , the thing in the right one is a giant thornless Himalayan blackberry .

Both tubs were my original raised 310 litre strawberry barrel but it got in the way of the final  landscaping project & I needed two smaller tubs for the plants .



This tub 500 long  x 350 wide  x 400 mm high holding a small vine is an old redundant central heating header tank out of the roof void of our bungalow ..

These size of tubs often comes in handy for temporary storage of a plant that needed to be moved and had to hang around till you found a space for it .

Himalayan blackberry?  How's that taste?  Never heard of it.  How easy is it to grow?  Many thorns?

come on, come on - give us some info on this one!!

Nice pix, btw.  I really like your wall.

Love the wall grape vine. Is that about 3 or 4 ft high? Do you cut those vines off every year?

CC

Plantoid, Can those containers be permanent homes for the vines? I'm thinking about a small vine for me. Sanderson, from the raisin capitol of the world.

Vines have tap roots that go way down so I don't think a container would work for a permanent location.

Marie
The thornless black berries  ...taste like big sweet black berries but there is a much bigger fruit up to 1 & 1/4" long by about an inch in diameter .  They are easily propagated by breaking off a foot of this years growth cutting it on thslant just below a bud or leaf node ( pull off the leaf , dip the cutting in hormone powder .  Now and push it nine inches into the soil on a north facing wall to keep the sun off and leave it alone save for a good water every time  they start to dry out.

One of my projects for 2015 is to take several dozen such cuttings  , get them rooted sharp sand in a  bucket , then plant them on the 7 foot embankment at the rear of my gardens , behind the panelled fencing to help keep the nettles & other weeds at bay , to encourage more of the smaller birds & various types of  bees to come to visit the area.

CC
Each year I've trimmed the four runners back so that there are buds along the thickest pat of each 12 foot runner.
 I've also been quite busy nipping out the parts that want to carry on growing at the end of each runner ..as i'm after grapes not leaves or vine wood. 

John p
Yep you got it ,the vines in the tubs are temporary , as I said the're there till spring ,then they are getting planted out in pre prepared positions in the garden now that the landscaping is done.

Who has made homemade wine or jellies from one of these?
https://www.vivino.com/wine-news/5-grapes-native-to-the-united-states

Grew up with Concord grapes in my backyard, will do again! Delosci