grape vines and figs

Rather than hijack the canning thread any further,  here is a new thread with a link https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t16370p64-canning

 
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a picture of my two grape vines trained on 2 cattle panels. The far left is the grape used in the jam.  What looks like 2 vines on the right is actually 1 scuppernong vine. A local farmer gave it to me. He had buried a shoot in a bucket under his arbor and we though just the middle section was what had  rooted and what he was giving me.  To our surprise that second section peeled off the top of his arbor and came along.  It was interesting getting it home in the truck.  It was loaded with infant grapes and the day I transplanted ( filled a big hole with roots and MM.) was super hot and dry.  I really watered the entire area that day and sure enough it wilted.  Transplant shock.  Most of the tiny grapes dropped off, but I pruned it back some and kept it watered that summer and actually had about 3 cups of grapes in late fall. Last year I got a colander plus full.  This year I have high hopes.  
I'm told I will need to prune these vines this winter to encourage new growth and more grapes.

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Here is my latest effort, planted in late spring.  Another markdown plant.  It is a green seedless.  Picture dated 5/24.


FIGS

About 3 weeks after transplant into buckets of MM.







I'll take more pictures today and post.  They have grown a lot.

Kay

fig pictures as promised

Desert King



Celeste



Ischia



This little fellow and his double size bigger brother were dug up from a friends yard last summer. He was about this size when transplanted.  Big brother succumbed to the killer cold this winter and  I thought this one was a gone too. Because his transplant hole was lower than the mower, he didn't get hit in the early spring.  In June I was looking for a place to plant blueberries and was going to reuse this space.  When I looked closely, there were 4 little tiny leaves grown from root top. I put up the piece PVC to protect from the mower and he is slowly growing.


I'm going to mulch the little fellow heavily this winter and put the buckets against the south foundation bricks.  Figs are usually hearty here but a lot of people either lost their fig bushes completely or they were damaged right down to ground level last winter. My neighbor's bush has regrown to about 1/3 the size it was.

Grape vines today

red grape


scuppernong



Kay

This is so interesting, Kay.  I didn't realized that the grapes could be rooted from cuttings.  I have a neighbor that recently passed and his house is up for sale.  I was checking out his beautiful yard a few weeks ago and he has a vigorous grape vine.  Not sure what it is, the grapes were green at the time, but I think I'll grab some cuttings and root them since we know they grow well here.  I know he wouldn't mind at all if he were still with us.

Also, last fall when I pruned my fig tree I stuck the pruned sticks into a couple of buckets of compost on a whim and pretty much forgot about them.  This spring I figured that the horrible winter we had probably did them in but I'll be darned of there aren't 2 new figs trees starting, one in each bucket.  

Whatta hoot!

CC

CC.  Try to get some ends of the vine that have fallen on the ground and rooted.  This one was still attached to the mother vine when we cut it free.  But I know that cuttings will root.  This is my first try at grape vines and figs.  Figs will put up suckers at the base of the bush.


Kay

Here is a picture of the last picking of my scuppernong grapes.

 

The first picking was the same as the yellow bowl and each picking gave me a yield of 8 pints and 2 half pints - total 16 pints and 4 half pints.  I gave my neighbor the white container for eating.  I have had 3 pint containers of grapes for eating and plan to eat the grapes in the glass bowl.



Kay

Wow what a lovely abundance there. How did they taste?

They were very sweet inside.  Full of seeds and the skin is very tough.  There is a knack to eating thick skinned muscadine grapes and it is better done under the grapevine so you can popped the pulp out of the skin, strain the seeds out with your teeth and just like watermelon seeds, spit them out.  Discard the skin.  I eat a few skins but they are sour.  Chopped up in the jam, the skins make it more tangy than just the pulp.

The skins are good in compost.

Kay

I need to get new pictures of the figs in the buckets.  They are really growing.

Just my rambling:

Remember the Movie "A Walk in the Clouds?" The fire that devastated the vineyards but the Matriarch vine survived so they knew they would be able rebuild with their excellent grape variety? That's because they propagate from cuttings.

Living in the raisin capitol of the world, pruned vines used to be freely available for making wreaths. Growers would just stack them in big piles and burn them for disposal on Ag Burn Days. I asked one grower if I could have some vines to make a wreath. He would sell them but not give them away for free! He had to buy the cuttings and did not want someone propagating his variety for free.

Yes , I do remember that movie.  To continue your rambling, we here in NC are proud of our "Mother Vine" 

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/26/nation/la-na-grapevine-20100726


Out of 5.000 mother vine cuttings, 104 survived to start this new wine.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/07/mother-all-vines-gives-birth-new-wine

Kay

Kay, Fascinating, and touching. Now I'm wondering if I have room for one little vine? Hmm

Love the pictures of your grapes! they look lovely!

This is our grape vines 3rd year and they produced a ton of table eating clusters




the key I believe is good pruning.....we found some great videos on you tube....

let me know if you would like the links to them and I will get them for you!

Love the pictures and info done on the figs as well thinking about trying a fig tree in a container

happy gardening
rose

The figs are growing well.



I may repot next spring into a giant pot of MM.  I'm not ready to put into the ground yet because if my son decides to buy his own house instead of renting mine, I'll move to Wilmington NC.
Kay

FamilyGardening wrote:Love the pictures of your grapes! they look lovely!

This is our grape vines 3rd year and they produced a ton of table eating clusters




the key I believe is good pruning.....we found some great videos on you tube....

let me know if you would like the links to them and I will get them for you!

Love the pictures and info done on the figs as well thinking about trying a fig tree in a container

happy gardening
rose

 Yes please , would you post or PM me the links .

 I'd like to see some different pruning methods now that my first vine runs 15 feet in left & right directions on wires and also has two levels in each direction also on support wires .
I also have two other vines potted up last year in spring that I couldn't transplant due to the final landscaping session taking place. These two vines are only babies with about four feet of growth coming from the head of the cutting ( black grape cuttings grafted  on grub resistant root  cutting stock )
 
The big vine is in it's fourth year, on a south facing wall , it has produced about 20 bunches of small but very sweet black grapes .  The ground water table is barely 12" below the vines main roots but it may actually be drier several feet down under the clay plate.

 You can make a delicious country wine using grape vine leaves that you remove when you give the vine it's early tidy up  . Add sugar to get the right specific gravity and add a couple of vitamin B tablets to feed the quality wine yeast, then follow a standard vinification recipe .

Here are a few videos we found helpful  

Structure of Spur and Cane Pruned Grape Vines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCs03Mc2HKM

Pruning Basics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMLIZpH7so&list=UUBr5ACbEF_9UljHRaT-2iSQ

Four Cane Kniffin System:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2Ovh7wFJs

Training Vines part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6CUhKm6TnE

Training Vines part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa3JStrzLdI

Hope this helps
Rose