First Veraison!

I went on vacation for over a week and came back to veraison! Half of the grapes are still green, while the other half are various shades of purple.







The above three photos are the grapes undergoing veraison. It will still be a while until they are ready to be harvested.



The above picture is my new first year Concord. The picture is misleading because the larger vine next to it is vigorously growing into it. All of the growth on the wire is the other older vine, while the skinny vine growing up the pole is the actual first year vine. It has acceptable growth this first year.



All of the leaves you can see in this one is the seedless concord. It grew tremendously this first year. I can only expect the roots are even larger! It has reached the top wire and is starting to grow to the right already quite a bit. Very impressive! There is still time this summer for the vines to grow, so I can expect quite a bit more growth on the new vines until this fall.

Fruit Finally Growing!

Well it took three long years of patience growing my first grapevine, and I'm finally getting fruit. It's well worth it, because there is a lot!



Above is a picture of just a small part of the third year grapevine. There are so many berry clusters! There would be another half more but I picked off a third of the clusters in the beginning of the season to ensure proper ripening.



A part of the other side of the vine. :)



Above is a picture of almost the whole grapevine. I had trouble getting the whole thing in the picture. The foliage didn't fill in like I wanted it to in the middle, but I'll make sure it does next year.



This is my concord grapevine that was planted this year. It reached the top wire and is amongst the leaves of the third year grapevine.



Finally, this is my seedless concord. There was a hail storm a few weeks ago that knocked the top few leaves off of the vine which slowed its reach to the top. It's a blessing in disguise because more strong shoots are growing out of the main trunk which means more root development. I've noticed the leaves on the seedless concord are much bigger than the regular concord. I don't know if it is just because of the extra shoot growth, but I'm sure I'll be able to compare the two next year.

Flowering and Berry Set

About a week ago, the Concords began to flower. They kind of smelled like Febreeze if you'd believe that. After only about three days the flowers fell off and the berries started to enlarge. Right now they are only about 2 mm in diameter. It seems like some of the berries are enlarging faster than others.

A few days ago, I put up some trellis wire at the same height as the fully grown Concord for the other two vines. They are about a foot away from the top.

Full Swing Spring

Spring is in full swing here. The vines are in fast growth right now. The two new vines are shooting up very fast for a first year vine. I had to put up some chicken wire around the vines after I saw a few leaves gone from rabbits on the seedless concord. It recovered fine and is growing very fast. I wouldn't be surprised to see both of the new vines hit the top wire in a few weeks.

The 3 year old "concord" vine is doing well. The spring has been very rainy with very few sunny days. For this reason, I've been looking out for mildew on the leaves, but there doesn't appear to be any so far. Several of the canes are a few feet long, while others are not even a foot long yet. This is very strange; it only seems to be occurring on the skinnier of the two canes that were left for this year. However, there are three clusters growing at each node. I already picked off the third cluster from each, and I am wondering if I should pick off more. I may pick off all but one cluster for the small shoots and leave two clusters on the larger shoots.

Spring Budbreak!

Well, after a long grueling winter, the vine has shown budbreak! Little pink buds are popping out of each node on the 2 year Concord. I also ripped the bunny-ravaged vine I tried growing last year out of the ground and put in its place a Concord I got from Double A vineyards. By the chimney, I put in a seedless Concord. Both new concords have smaller buds appearing than the more mature vine.

This is the mature vine. Each node (about 4 inches away from each other) has buds, already showing three small leaves appearing. When I pruned the vine this winter, I put several of the cuttings of the small ends of the canes into some water to see how they would grow; up to two grape clusters are on each node! I would have never expected so many clusters on only a two year old vine. :) I'm pretty happy about it.

Here's one of the many buds that are showing some red leaves shooting out. Small clusters of grapes can be seen in between the leaves that are forming.

Here's the new Concord I got. I got the new vine in the mail and I was surprised at how heavy it was. I opened the wrapping, and found that several of the roots were over a foot and a half long. I had a bit of trouble digging a hole big enough to fit the roots in. (I'm not even upset. :) )

This is the seedless Concord. It came with a lot smaller of a root system and was a smaller sized vine compared to the regular Concord. I believe it is just because it is younger and less developed, though I have heard that seedless Concords have smaller vines/clusters/berry size.


Overall, I'm very satisfied with how the spring is turning out so far. We are getting lots of rain to help the new roots establish themselves after I planted them.