I'm glad to hear it, Jerry! I haven't looked at mine yet. Better weather is coming this weekend, a good time to get out and survey.

I was pruning apple trees over the weekend and they look like they came through the winter just fine. Most of the roses look to be cane dead to the ground. Own root, so they should come back. A few marginally hardy pine trees didn't appreciate the -29 blast we got and look blow torched. On the bright side, no winter watering was needed! A few tulips are breaking the soil surface. C'mon Spring!

Jerry - Awesome. I checked my Swenson Red Seedless, which I grow in an unheated greenhouse, and it appears to be quite healthy too. This will be its third year in the ground and I believe it was going into its second year when I planted it, so I'm hoping for some fruit this year. Takes a few years for a vine to get mature enough to bear, correct? Last year I harvested two solitary berries lol. They were so good though

What kind of grapes do you grow?

HI, Somerset 6th year, Himrod 3rd year, Jupiter and Trollhaugen 2nd year + a Himrod planted last year that was a dud.

How long before yours start to bear fruit?

What's your favorite so far?

Hi Jerry,

I was cleaning up my singular grape vine last week, cutting off stems that had "gone astray" and such, and noticed for sure that the INSIDE of the stems are still green--so it is definitely alive again this year! It generally starts to grow out pretty late--but when it does it takes off like there's no tomorrow!

Mine was "originally" 'Reliance', which is a small pink/red, very sweet, seedless table grape, but several years back all the stems above the graft died off and it reverted back to the root stock--which I assumed was "plain old Concord," but, while the grapes I get now are a slip-skin grape and it is purple, it does not have seeds, so I don't know if it's the "seedless Concord" or if it's something else! It is still pretty good--if you don't mind slip-skin grapes!

Last year I had a LOT of grapes and had offered them to my neighbor to make juice or jelly--but one fine nite they ALL disappeared! The neighbors on the "other side" of the neighbors I was giving mine to was also giving theirs to "my neighbor"--and ALL of theirs "disappeared" on the same nite mine did! No grapes--no juice--no jelly! It was a RACCOON!!!

Some day I may get another 'Reliance' and start all over again--it really is a good grape!

Skybird

F 03.24.23 @ 1835 MDT

Good to hear form you Skybird. Yes, I live in fer of raccoons. A guy who works at Harlequinn told me that he has a plot of over 50 grape vines and they all got wiped out by raccoons - he thought in one night.

L Clark, We are still deciding on our favorites. Somerset and Himrod are 1/2 or 2/1. Have not gotten a chance to try Trollhaugen yet. Somerset is supposed to be the mst winter-hardy and has done well. Himrod is suposed to be less hardy, but made it through -22 this winter. Himrod ripens almost as early as Somerset, but buds out at least a weak later in the spring, so would aavoid damage from some late freezes.

Here it is! Swenson Red. I have maybe 10 clusters like this. Very sweet and tastes a bit like strawberry. extremely gratifying. This has been years in the making