Ubro, you have a great technique going there for growing grapes! At my previous location, off the house we had a large four season solarium which was easily maintained as frost free, especially when there was snow on the roof for insulation. I know this differs from your setup, but in there I had grown 'Himrod' seedless and it sure had produced excellent quality sweet crunchy fruit! Nice thing about grapes is that many have a furry backside to their foliage and this deters spider mites. I also had some passion vines, one being 'Coral Seas' and it was vigorous as heck and grew to be at least twenty feet long covered in bloom, I did though need to keep the spider mites in check.

My outside grapes are still dormant so our season is too short to ripen most seedless grapes. The greenhouse is seasonal but it allows for an extra 2 months of growing time. We heat our house with a wood fired boiler and so we have set it up to circulate into the greenhouse as well. That makes the heating costs manageable.

Spider mites and aphids can be a problem if you don't keep an eye out.

As I said on another thread I give up trying to predict what will survive the winter and what will die. Of my grapes planted outside, one of my valiants died and right next to it King of the North and ES-56 lived.

My Valiant survived but it is only starting to leaf out now! I'm guessing no fruit this year. Sooo slow.

I'm new to growing grapes. I'm trying to figure out if it's even possible to do grapes here where the growing season is so short w/ out a greenhouse.

Anyway, I have a Valiant and a Beta that survived the winter, but I have no idea how far along they 'should' be. The Valiant has put out new growth about 6-8'' and I can see (what I'm assuming are) flower clusters that grow into grapes after they bloom? Is this anywhere near far enough along to expect grapes by end of the summer?

Also, will a grape vine leaf out earlier and grow more vigorously the older and more mature it is?

Lane Clark-In zone 4 you should be able to do a few grapes varieties. If I can get valiant to fruit in my short season zone you should have no trouble. My valiant is not in the greenhouse but I do lay it down for the winter. Last year I trimmed it way back so I had little fruit. This year it is just starting to flower and it is loaded again, but I think it is a few weeks late.

This was from the year before last.

Awesome, thanks for that, Urbo. My zone 4 is probably the coldest z4 imaginable. the winter minimums aren't that bad, hence Z4, but the spring come slow and winter quick because of the high altitude. only about 105 days of frost free days. Thus why I'm wondering about how far along a grape 'should' be at this point

My Valiant in northern Alberta took a kicking this year. About half or a bit more die back. It never got to 40 below but there were a lot of days under 30 below and winter dragged on forever. Tiny grapes have only started forming in the last week or two. Even a wild grape I have suffered. I think we could run out of summer before they mature. The previous winter had little die-back.

I agree, they are sure slow. Sometimes I think our seasons are changing. We used to get frost well into June and never put our bedding plants out until the second week. Now we happily put them in the last week in May. On the other end of summer, when we first moved to the farm, a hard frost the last week in August was normal, now I sometimes can get into the second week of Sept. before it freezes hard enough to kill plants.

I've wondered about a season change as well. So far my Valient suffered no damage but my Prairie Star and Frontenac did. How much is hard to say because they are so slow in coming out this year.

I was expecting freeze back on the Valiant after this prolonged winter but they did fine..even some canes which I didn't lay down survived, some years it's strange..probably it has to do allot in how they harden off in the fall. Planted 3 somerset last year, one died.

My prairie star and Brianna wintered very well. So did the valiant. 3 trial grapes had varying amounts of damage but are all pushing new growth. This is one of the slow trial grapes I think the dry spring has played a big part in the grapes starting

Brianna

My grapes are flowering now. This looks like best year ever for them lol

i did lay them down though

Just thought I would add what I have. Two years ago I bought a Valiant and a Minnesota grape vine. Both have lived, Valiant produced two small clusters of grapes last year. Small fruit and not very tasty. This year both are putting out leaves and appear healthy. I didn't give them any special care other than to mulch with 4/5 inches of leaves. I was suprised to read in the thread that some people lay the vines down. oops didn't do that. (is that to preserve the vine so they don't have to grow so much?) I am not sure if I should be pruning them.

Got some valiant grape blossoms now. yay

I'm re-reading the comments on this thread with interest. As some of you have read, I had about 90% winterkill on my 'Valiant' last year, and there may be a number of reasons for this (including a lengthy growing season drought). There was no particular order to survival (some of the vines highest off the ground survived), and it survived winters with equally cold winters, so I'm still wondering about this. And, to top it off, its neighbouring 'Beta' had nowinterkill at all, while a newly-planted 'Marquette' didn't survive at all. Well, at least both survivors are about to flower, so at least I'll have some crop this year.

It is my understanding that cold tolerance alone doesn't guarantee winter survival of grape vines. Generally North American vitis labrusca hybrids don't do so well in northern Europe, and vitis amurensis hybrids don't do too good in North America. It has a lot to do with precipitation and fluctuations in remperature during dormancy. I was able to find Valiant at a nursery here at the south coast (the warmest zone) and it was advertized as being only moderately hardy. Did you have high precipitation last year?

Grapes seem hard to figure out, but I wouldn't give up on Valiant.

We have a neighbour that, until this spring, we just knew in passing but because we both farm we came to know them better. Long story short, it turns out he is an immigrant from Romania and used to work in a vineyard. I couldn't believe my luck when he came over and explained both grape growth and pruning. At his farm ,near ours, he grows Valiant and he seemed to think that once the vine is well established and the trunk of sufficient size then the chance of survival increases. But he does lay them down as well.

Combining his grape growing expertise with his insistence that cabbage rolls made with grape leaves are superior I learned a lot. I will have to make these once I get his wife's recipe.

Very nice trellises Greg. How old are your grapes?

The Brianna is 15 + yrs. and the prairie star 5 + yrs I took out my Swenson Red and Kandiyohi (both the same age as the Brianna ) this past spring. They were great but had to be laid down each winter. These two stay up on the trellis

Lovely grapes greg, I wish I did not need to lay down mine, but in zone 2 I would only risk it if I had a spare grape plant. I don't find it a pain to take them off the trellis if I make sure to grow them on straight wires not grids. Then they come off easily when you don't have to pull them thru the holes.

I was very surprised that my Suffolk Seedless survived so well. As I noted above, my greenhouse is unheated so in my zone 2 it gets very cold in there and yet it produced large grapes by the last week in July, and the greenhouse was started March 1. That means they ripened within 4 months. I wonder how they would do in Zone 3a?

Can someone post a picture of their valiants, please? I'm curious to see how mine look compared to "normal" ones at this point in time. Mine unfortunately don't get a ton of sun..

Mine are the full range from green to ripe on two plants, they wintered well and have the most fruit ever. The crowns are about 6" above ground level and about 1.5" in diameter.

Mine are tiny! I'm shocked (but not really because I put them is such a dumb spot). However, they are turning color. I just though they'd get bigger before they started to turn

Valiant grapes

Those look awesome

Thanks, the orioles were snacking on them but they have headed your direction now.

We got a killing frost last night, only a few leaves on the grapes still green, I picked most of the grapes and left some to see if they can ripen some.

Not related to grapes, but we may have a record -long growing season this year. May 15 was last freeze and it doesn't seem like it's ready to freeze any time soon. Usual for here is June 4 - Sept 5 or very close to that.

They do make lovely grape jelly. I was surprised that my Valiant grapes actually ripened this year. They bloomed so late and seemed to grow slowly, and yet, they did ripen.

I picked mine just after the first frost. There were several clusters that weren't completely ripe but many that were. Last year there were perhaps 7/8 clusters, this year over 20. :)

Curious how many more I might get off these vines next year. Will the clusters continue to multiply or do they top out?

Is there anything in particular I should do to protect my grapes over winter? Should I feed them this fall?

I didn't fare so well. Very small crop. The Valiant came closest to ripening, the Prairie Star never sized up. The grapes never sized up and was hard which was odd because it gets the most sun. I suspect I did not water enough in the drought.

applemum, I lay my vines down although I know many do not. I have seen the difference between the vines that are left above the snow and those under the snow in my zone 2. The vines under the snow do not dry out or die back. I don't feed or water in the fall.

Yes..I also lay down, some I didn't and did OK but more some years you can have more die back. Pruning out long shoot during growth gets you larger clusters and size up better, more light and airflow helps.

Some of my vines grew up through a lattice can I prune those back by half now? It would make it so much easier to get them out of the lattice. These vines did not produce fruit this year. Do grapes produce fruit on new growth or last years vines like raspberries or both?

I am not sure but I think you can prune them out. I don't use lattice for that very reason. Konrad has posted a picture of using re-bar and wire, and it looks tidy and sturdy. I use a two wire system on treated 4x4 posts.

Grapes, I believe, produce clusters on first years growth from last years (or older) shoots.

Looking for advice. I want to grow Somerset seedless in zone 3b. With a wrap around deck I don't have a wall for them to shelter against and would prefer to avoid having to lay them down every year. Can I just trellis them very low, like 18-24" so they are naturally snow covered? Any disadvantage to that beside bending over to harvest? I am in the middle of a large field to they would exposed to wind but we have at least 18" of snow before the real cold comes. Thanks for any tips.

I don't see why not, I trellis my King of the North like that. I do have 3 wires on the posts and I leave the upper ones in the weather but I can always count on the lower trellis to live. I don't do it for any other reason than I don't have the time to cover all my grapes, and these are not my favourite.

One draw back is that they are easy for rodents or, as in my case, my Golden Retriever, to eat.

I have vines on a few levels and leave a new cane growing on or near the ground for insurance but like ubro says rodents can be an issue

I have a Swenson red seedless in my unheated greenhouse. Planted last summer. Appears to be in good condition. Maybe a little bit of bud swell

I feel I should update this thread, too. Here is Swenon Red! Very proud if these. they taste a bit like strawberry

Zone 4b Canada (USDA 3b).

Himrod, Candice, Reliance not hardy.

Roland, not hardy and does not taste good either compared to alternatives.

Swenson white and red, vines ok but hardly any fruit and swenson red does not ripen well.

Petite jewel, variable - good crops on vines put under snow, heavy losses above snow in -30C winters (ripen early-mid sept).

Concord - variable. Bit worse than Trollhaugen but tastes so good and negligible disease and japanese beetles do not like as much.

Trolhaugen but better than Petiete jewel but still - variable. Some crops even at -30C but vines below snow MUCH happier - ripen beginning Sept.

Prarie Star and Brianna - both bomb proof. Like the taste for fresh eating of Prarie Star better - bit more tropical fruit/pineapple than Brianna which is a bit more vegital (Both ripen mid to late sept). Prarie star probably 2nd favorite of japanese beetles after Somerset.

Bluebell - Bombproof. Concord/Coronation type flavour. Very thick skins when very ripe. Seems to get get brown rot fairly easy. Big berries on nice clusters though so worth it.

Somerset - 5* and bombproof. Amazing taste. 100% hardy. Downsides are small grapes on small clusters and leaves are devistated by japanese beetles but crazy amazing strawberry flavour in a home grown seedless grape means it is a must plant. Ripens end august and holds well on vine for 3+ weeks getting sweeter and sweeter before starting to shrivel. Imagine would be great for farmers markets and CSA due to long harvest time.

Valient - Bombproof but why plant if you have alternatives. Small grapes that are 50% seed. No good for fresh eating (too tart for my taste buds). If you canèt grow anything else, ok. If you really want for jelly, ok. Otherwise i would try some of the above.