I’ll be honest with you here, grapes are probably one of the least practical fruits you can grow from a homesteading stand point. They really are a luxury fruit that take up a lot of time and space and require a long learning curve, which makes it difficult to justify the fact that many varieties don’t have a lot of long term keeper value.
Unless you are absolutely crazy about raisins and grape jelly or have designs on producing your own wine for trade with other homesteaders, then you have to get creative with how you justify growing them. That being said enjoying a handful of table grapes is a refreshing thing that reminds you just why we all love summer so much!
Grapes do poorly when exposed to hard winter temperatures, so make sure you are picking a variety that grows well in your growing zone.
There are essentially two different types of grape you can choose from, table grapes and wine grapes. Since wine grapes require a long growing season in order for them to develop full bodied flavor it is wise to not push the limits on your growing zone. If you live in growing zone 5, my advice is that you pick a variety of wine grape whose northern limit is zone 4. It is a heart breaking thing to spend a full season pruning vines, training them onto lines and tending the grapes only to have them killed by an early fall freak frost.
Growing zone: 4 to 10
Time to maturity: Varies by type, generally 3 to 5 years
Pollination needs: Most are self-pollinating but it is best to have at least two of the same kind to improve pollination opportunities by insects.
Pruning/Thinning: After vines are established within 2 to 3 years they will require annual pruning.
Harvest time: Varies by type but most require 160 to 180 frost free days to ripen the fruit.
All grapes must be trained to a trellis system in order to keep the vines properly ventilated. Also because the fruit is so high in sugar and water if it is allowed to touch the ground they will quickly rot. There are three types of trellis systems you can use.
A kniffen trellis is the classic trellis most people think of. It uses long rows of sturdy posts with wires strung between them. The grapes are trained and tied onto the wires with a soft cotton twine. The trick with this kind of trellis system is to allow for three wires increasing in height. This allows you to give the vine something to grab a hold of early on to give it an anchor to climb. As the vine matures and the trunk grows taller you can remove the lowest wire with your first pruning.
I used a kniffen trellis with my first set of grape vines. While it worked, I planted it in an exposed area to give the vines maximum sun light. Unfortunately this also meant the area was exposed to straight line winds and in their fourth year the post system was compromised by the storm. If you are going to use this system of single posts I recommend a distance between posts of no more than 8 feet.
Also in hindsight I anchored the posts by pouring concrete at the base. When the soil failed it simply turned the post over. If I were to employ a single post system again I would use packed rock in the post hole instead.
A T-shaped trellis system is another alternative that I have seen used on small hobby farms that produce table grapes which grow on vigorous vines. The idea is that a single post rises in the middle of the row and the wires are suspended at the ends of the T’s. This allows the vines to grow wider and sprawl out to soak up the sun. To be honest with you, the first time I saw this system was shortly after my blow down event and I was put off by the idea of using a single post in any system.
That experience led me to try using a V-Post and that is now the system I prefer to employ for grapes. The idea is that two posts rise at a modest angle from separate anchor points of packed rock. A spacer board is placed flat on them and bolted on each side with a single carriage bolt. It almost looks like you turned the legs of a picnic table upside down. Then wires are run from both posts down the line.
The single bolt allows a little bit of shimmy in the whole system, while the two posts still stay related to each other. After a major storm event you might have to go out and straighten everything up a little but you shouldn’t have a catastrophic failure that kills the vines.
Long term storage options: Grapes tend to ripen in clusters. If a cluster of grapes is only half ripened give it a few more days and they should all be ready for harvest.
Table grapes are really only good for canning as jelly or drying as raisins. Some wine grapes can be dried into raisins but most are only good for wine or wine blends with other fruits.
It is worth noting that the wood of pruned grape vines when properly dried is a great addition for grilling vegetables in the spring. The smoke produced by burning dried grape wood especially brings out the flavor in grilled onions and leeks.