We attempted a full planting of this area in April 2004. However between issues with the auto watering system not working as planned, being out of town that August and a failure of the experiement with attempting to root and plant grape sticks as opposed to rooter plants, we were back to scratch Spring of 2005.

Spring 2005 we got a few grape vines and put them in pots to expand their root systems. Grew them in pots in the greenhouse over the summer and planted them out in September 2005. Five of them them made it through the winter and are growing lovely leaves and viney parts on their trellis in the vineyard now.

There are three more grapes and two raspberry bushes in pots in the greenhouse summer 2006, and I imagine they will get planted out this fall since that pattern seems to work last year.

At some point we will be able to start propagating the grapes from our existing plants to begin filling in the rest of the area. We'll take this one slowly and expand a little bit each year.

Once grape & berry plants are in the ground, it takes a few years before they are fully productive. Once it is though, we will have many pounds of delicious fruit to eat, contribute to community events, and to sell at market.

No, we aren't doing wine. We are interested in table grapes primarily as we love to eat them and they are both expensive and not-permaculture (coming from South America most of the time) at the grocery store.

Grape Varieties