Grapes…..

Our grapes are read and will get picked tomorrow and the wine started. We have three active vines of which two are loaded with grapes. I’ll be adding some purchased grapes to the mix as well. The two good producers this year are Frontenac variety, not the best for wine but doable as a blush. The other vine is a red but didn’t do well early on so production is lower on it, but there’s enough to add a bit of color to the wine. I’m getting ten pounds of white grapes from a grower to add into the mix and we should start with about 5 gallons, finishing with around four gallons. Every year is different as grapes are can be a product of the weather they’ve grown in, but we’ve never had a bad batch.

Weds. we pick our hops and deliver them to a local micro-brewery where we’ll get our rewards in glasses.

This is a fun time of the year when the off-character crops start to om I and the other gardens don’t eat up so much of ur time.

I have not been able to get sufficient grapes off my vines to make wine for at least 8 years now. I have Frontenac and St. Pepin.

Frontenac is savaged by blackrot every year and it gets into the clusters and destroys 50-75% the grapes. I have sprays for it, of course, but it seems like one would have to spray after every rain or heavy dew, which these days amounts to about every other day in May to July.

Besides spraying on an almost daily basis, how do you avoid blackrot and downy mildew?

I have heard that Marquette is much more resistant to BR and other diseases. Anyone tried those vines?

Grouse

wouldnt it just be much easier to buy a bottle of boonsefarm???

glenn57 wrote:

wouldnt it just be much easier to buy a bottle of boonsefarm???

Is that an admission?

tegg wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>glenn57 wrote:</div>
wouldnt it just be much easier to buy a bottle of boonsefarm???

Is that an admission?

maybe sometimes :???::???:

Ya Glenn I could do that and fall into the same ranks as you inhabit….lol….sunfish ya know. But then the wine wouldn’t be unique. Boonesfarm and sunfish fry….go together like diarreah and pepto-bistmol.

Got them picked, crushed, drained and in the primary fermenter already. Got about three gallons of raw juice and it will get cut a bit with bottled water to make about 4 gallons. Gotta sit a day or two so any live native yeasts can start before I add the Camden tablet to kill that, then the good yeast gets added a day or so later.

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TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I have not been able to get sufficient grapes off my vines to make wine for at least 8 years now. I have Frontenac and St. Pepin.

Frontenac is savaged by blackrot every year and it gets into the clusters and destroys 50-75% the grapes. I have sprays for it, of course, but it seems like one would have to spray after every rain or heavy dew, which these days amounts to about every other day in May to July.

Besides spraying on an almost daily basis, how do you avoid blackrot and downy mildew?

I have heard that Marquette is much more resistant to BR and other diseases. Anyone tried those vines?

Grouse

Our Frontenac grapes are nuts this year…the same as last year only better.
Can’t control the weather in the least and some of what you mention is air-borne so while your ground may not support those problems your neighbors blight might be your enemy….spraying will help if you’re willing to invest in it. The mildew can be controlled with sulpher powder applied when the leave are damp [early morning] and will last for several rains. Mildew has to “develop” and after the treatment can take several weeks to reappear.

Try fertilizing with 10-10-10 late in the fall after the growing season has ended. This puts the nutrient in the ground but now so much that the vines are all growth the following spring. Cut the vines back well too after the growing season ends. My grapes look like he// after I trim but fill right out the next year.

The Marquette variety you mention has been brought up a couple times for not doing too well here in the Rochester area but I don’t know if its the grower or the environment, but then too the Frontenac sees the same kind of critique. The kids have two Frontenacs on an arbor and last year they had a bumper crop they couldn’t keep up with while this year they won’t get a grape.. Do some research on the variety before buying.

Grapes can be weird plants. Our grapes are all planted in the roughest, driest, crap soil we have in the yard and get only the water nature sees fit to put on them and they usually do very well. I was told the worse the soil the better the vines and grapes….no idea if that holds water but it sure fits the description of what we have here. Lots of small pieces of field stone, gravel from a river beds and some clay in with the dirt. 10-10-10 in the fall, cut them back and watch for problems next spring. Sulpher powder and Sevin seem to be the only things we use if problems crop up.

And I’ll note here that what’s in the fermenter right now was only about 2/3 of what we have on the vines. The rest hadn’t turned yet so we still have a mess for table grapes.

Holy Communion Tom, is there nothing you don’t do or raise at your home?

I don’t like all my eggs in one basket Denny. lol The remaining grapes are turning now so there’ll be some for the table too. The wine is bubbling away in the primary yet. When it slows down I’ll siphon it into the glass fermenter where it’ll stay for a month to six weeks, depending on how well it settles out.

The hops Ma and I picked last week and took in to the micro-brewery up the street and we were treated to a couple cold ones in exchange.

Gotta have several directions of interest Denny. Life doesn’t get boring that way. Might get a little tipsy at times, but boring? Never.

Tom, you must have a garden plot away from your home, yes maybe?

Nope. I have several areas of the yard I plant “my” veggies in though so it’s not like I have one garden. Our lot is non-conforming with the greatest width along the parkland behind us so I use much of the woven wire fence for the hops and my Frontenac grapes. The other. Grape vine grows on a stone retaining wall behind one of Carole’s flower beds.

My main garden is next to the driveway in front of the garage and is bordered on the far side by a shirt retaining wall where our raspberries grew. I took the raspberries out and now plant tomatoes in that location. On the short wall of the garage facing the park land I have a raised bed garden where I. Do the carrots, lettuce, chard, some of the beets, basil and herbs and hot peppers.

I don’t use much fertilizer except for some 10-10-10 on the grapes, but I bag my mower clippings and add compost starter then seal up the bags after shooting in a bi of water. This makes green manure and the rotting process kills weed seeds better than weed killers. I dump and speed these bags towards the end of October and till it in. Yes it smells like someone is emptying a manure pit on a pig farm and once in a while the neighbors carp but I remind them of their barking dogs and it’s end of discussion. Using this green manure allows me to plant like crops close to create more shade than weeds need to grow and it puts right back in the ground natural nutrients that promote growth. I use some fall-spread 10-10-10 on the asparagus and on the grapes as neither area gets tilled but that’about It.

A person doesn’t need a huge area to grow a great garden but maintaining healthy soil is imperative to growing a great garden. This process of recycling from the yard to garden works very well in that regard. The debris from fall garden cleanup gets bagged in an identical fashion and is spread back the next spring to be rolled in. No waste, all benefit.