Crash course on growing grapes

[TJsBasement]

Every night that it drops close to 30 it makes me feel less like a dilutional freak and glad that I build a temporary indoor grow area. The strawberry really like not being froze and I may keep a few indoors just to force a bunch of runners for next year. The grape cutting are all starting their first leaf even all the wild ones, I made a couple wild cuttings that was getting close to an inch thick and they are budding also a tiny bud is just shoving out the side of the wood, I wasn't sure if the thick wood could produce but they sure look like it.

This is one 135w 7 band LED from HTG supply and 3 14w panels from ebay. All the plant seam to like the LED light, is very early to tell but I am planning a few for long term indoor growing so time will tell.

Anybody have any first hand with them indoor composters. I'm looking at the "Nature Mills" indoor, a bit pricey but if it really works it's well worth it. I can't really have an outdoor compost pile do to neighbors and too many neighborhood animals, and I'm not aloud to discharge firearms, stupid city rules.

Here is my hodge-podge grow area, no I am not an will not grow anything illegal, I would never risk my house and family, just not worth it.

 

[TJsBasement]

My grapes are looking ok, most have at least one leaf, a couple wilted then came back, from what I gather from grapemans fine thread a few are out growing the roots development. I have way more plants then I have room to grow so I'll probly keep them better looking ones and donate the rest to friends.
Some how starting with grapes has transitioned into me setting up a indoor hydro/aeroponics system to grow strawberries, not sure how but it happened. I have 3 types of red and 2 types of white strawberry, White Soul and White D. The White D/pineberry come from Burpee, good looking plants and they was potted and shipped really well. Im only a week in with the strawberries so time will tell.
I got them currants from Double A and planted 17 last night, kinda making a hedge row with em. They shipped right on schedule.

 

[TJsBasement]

Grapes are still growing, slow. I just dont have enough light shinning on them, making roots so I guess its all good and its getting real close to planting time.





Some of the strawberries are flowering. I was going on limited information and running the light 18/6 and later found out that to long of photo period will force them to fruit. Should have been more like 12 on 12 off. And I was getting too much light in the tote and resulted in growing brown algae, an h2o2 root and equipment wash and newly built light proof lid has cleared that up, I hope. The aeroponics system is just a DIY "EZ Clone" setup, nice and cheap and they claim you can crank out clones, one video showed tomato clones from cut from mother plant to 1" roots in 6 days. I'll be testing the idea with grapes just to see. Hay is it true that black currants smell like cat piss and is it just black, should I just dig them up now before they get growing to good.

 

[grapeman]

What procedure do you use for the hydrogen peroxide wash? What percent, amount used etc? I have some surface mold on my soil mix and would like to get rid of it. Would this work? Sorry for the questions, I have no hydroponic knowledge to speak of.

 

[TJsBasement]

Im just mucking thru. But I used plant peroxide 29% some powerful stuff from a hydro shop it was like 11 bucks for 1 liter. Directions on the back say add 3ml to 4 liter of water then add to nutrient tank every 3-5 days. Very limited info on all this hydro stuff, but most of the stuff I'm reading they are not growing strawberry if you know what I mean. Yeah grapeman from my super limited knowledge I'd say some peroxide would fix any fungus or bacterial growth. They say you should reinoculate after a strong wash because it "kills" all the good stuff too.

I have read that normal wally world peroxide has stabilizers in it, ingredients says "peroxide 3% (stabilized)". So I use plant peroxide for stuff the plants eat and house peroxide to wash all tools and equipment then wash off the house stuff with water.

 

[TJsBasement]

Sumbitches are growing now, put em under a 300watt HPS and in 2 days I see loads more growth. Hey Mr. Grapeman do you have any special treatments to get them ready for transplant, like increase water or less or special fertilizer a few weeks before. And did you try the h2o2? Figure I'll have to do like a week of more sun everyday to get them used to the outside. A few strawberry that I just stuck out look a bit shocky over the past week.

Looks like I get to eat a strawberry next week. I just tried my hand at pollinating strawberry, could be a day or two early.

 

[grapeman]

I have not tried the h202 yet as it had eased up a lot. It seems to get worse on cloudy days- which we have a lot of lately. We are in for a few days of sun in a row so hopefully they get past it alright. I may treat a few flats anyways to see if it is effective.

I don't do a lot to prepare for planting. Just make sure they are growing well and have lots of roots and some good leaves. If anything right before planting say a week ahead of time, hold back the water some to stress them. That gets them hardened up some. Also take them outside under some prtection, say a sparse tree so it gets dappled sun. Then a couple days before setting out, put them in full sun.

 

[tatud4life]

WOW!!! All your plants look great! I live in Northeast Tennessee Zone 6. I have 3 muscadine vines, 50 strawberries, 4 blackberries, 4 raspberries, and 4 apple trees. I have had pretty good success so far. We had a hard frost this year and it hit my grapes pretty hard. They have made a great come back though. For my grapes, the only things that I use is triple 10 fertilizer on the 1st of each month and calcium nitrate on the 15th of each month. I stop in july to keep any late growth from hurting the vines. I wish I had more yard though. I am running out of room and I want to get 50 more strawberriy plants and another grape vine this year. Good luck to you!!! I normally order my stuff from Isons out of Georgia.

 

[TJsBasement]

Thanks tatud, wish I had more space at home too. It looks like I can do like 2 rows about 75-80 feet long without taking up ALL of the yard and still get a full day of sun. I'm really hoping to put strawberry plants as ground cover under my vines but thats all just planning so far so who knows. Now I need to figure out what types of grape I'll be keeping, whats best for area, space allotted, all that good stuff. I started a bunch of strawberry seeds and they are doing good too so thats a cheap option to get loads more berry plants.

 

[TJsBasement]

Ok I need to plan my site. I swear someone posted a safe natural diy roundup but I didn't really read it at the time thinking I would find it later, well its later and I cant find it. If anyone has a lead on that thanks a bunch. You guys don't worry about anything you use to kill weeds hurting your vines? The ground is clayish fill with a nice bit of rocks/bricks with random piece of ???? mixed in so its going to be nice and fun digging cleaning and amending it, its city farming so I can only ask for so much ya know. I guess by the time I'm done digging I'll have no grass to worry about.

 

[GreginND]

I'm not sure I would waste time trying "homemade" DIY roundup. Glyphosate is safe and very effective. You can save money buying an off brand concentrate. I have had good luck with TSC's big n tuff label. It's 41% glyphosate and contains surfactants that help it to penetrate the leaves. It's the least expensive that I have found. You need to be careful around your vines. Protect them from the spray. And do not pray on a windy day. I mix 3 oz per gallon and get good results.

 

[TJsBasement]

It's still bare ground, could almost be called a yard if not for all the rocks and totally bare spots. I'm not against roundup or the likes but the hippie in me wants for kid/pet/enviro safe products around the house. One option I read was boiling water, not very effective to do long rows but very natural, gives me the idea to use a propane burn down torch to fry the grass. I know why bother just use the right stuff but it makes me feel better, like I been using dish liquid soap as a pesticide in my indoor garden, probably not as effective or long lasting as good pesticide but I already ingest the stuff now so I see no harm, and I used baby dish soap.

 

[Corley5]

I use a 20" Mankar ULV applicator around my vines. Gives me a 40" vegetation free strip with no over spray.

 

[TJsBasement]

I did a little more digging, where I'll be putting the vines only has about 1-2 feet of fill clay then it's what I think is good dirt, blackish crumbly got that good dirt smell and doesn't seamed to be very compact. Would you guys strip the top 1 or 2 feet of clay then fill in or should I remove the rocks and mix it all up with the dirt under. As far as I can tell the black dirt goes deep, I had the 6' long auger all the way in.

How wide of an area would you guys work, my lay out is,
property line
enough room to mow like 7 feet (52" z turn)
vine
10' open space
vine
yard
Im thinking work 2 narrow bands around 4' right with the vine but I'm really not sure.

 

[TJsBasement]

Very little progress as of late, mostly just keeping the ones in the basement watered until I get a chance to get them planted. Of the 120 or so dormant clippings that I started maybe 15 have started then died from lack of water and a few just never started at all. Not a bad outcome considering the real effort or lack of that I put in.

The table grapes are looking ok, all have at least two stems coming out of the ground due to frost damage. I figure let em go this year then trim to just one trunk this winter or should I clip the smaller one now, I didn't know if it would try and grow back again this summer.




And E.T.Bass posted his hillbilly irrigation system I believe he called it and that is working amazing as a temporary irrigation just until they get going. I think I can see new growth daily.




Oh and one of my Lathem raspberries thats in a 6" pvc about 8" deep has already given me 2 nice berries not a lot but its only a 1 foot tall plant. A kiwi gold raspberry is getting closer to being ready, I like them plants that are pretty much weeds.

Strawberry plants under a pine tree are also doing great. And most of the white strawberry seedlings are coming right along. Also got some pink flowered strawberry and giant hand sized strawberries seeds started.

 

[bigdrums2]

Good luck with the strawberry seedlings. Most of my seedlings are weaklings but then again I don't pinch the flower cluster off early on them. As far as your soil, is clay your top soil and then you have your black dirt?

 

[tatud4life]

TJ, everything that I have read and heard says to prune back to 1 main trunk. Keep the side growth purned off until the trunk gets to the top wire. Once it gets to that point, purne back to the closest bud to the wire and that will cause it to split making your cordons that will run down the wire. While the cordons are growing, keep the side growth pruned off until they reach the end. Then let the side growth grow and keep the ends of the cordons pruned back. Good luck buddy!!

 

[bigdrums2]

All of that is correct, but let me suggest double trunks if you live in a high disease area. That way if you lose one it won't take three years to reestablish.

 

[tatud4life]

Very good point!

 

[TJsBasement]

Thanks bigdrums, I need all the luck I can get. I have some bare root strawberries that I planted earlier this year and I believe pinching the flowers is what is giving me the explosive growth that Im seeing, I have runners that are working on making a third plant from the original. When I miss plucking for a week or two growth slows down, at least I think I can see it. My soil yes it's clay on top with normal black dirt under, its what was removed from the hill to level out the area for building the house then spread over the existing top soil.I figure grapes are deep rooted and I'll be digging the holes with an agar so I can break it all the way down. Any strawberry seeds that I started where germinated in Jiffy soilless seed mix and under a CFL grow light in my basement so temps where kinda steady, its gets hot but a very buffered effect due to being half underground from removed dirt mentioned above.

tatud4life, thanks for the info but I'm just kinda playing around no real goal to speak of, some of this I'm doing just to see what happens. Maybe I'll clip a couple and leave a couple. One of the reasons I'm hesitant to clip them off is that I just cut down a few wild grapes and cutting them has turned the remaining stump into a shoot makes factory, they are literarily are filling the whole area above them with fresh shoots, I worry my table grapes would try to do something similar and just keep trying to replace what I cut off instead of growing roots like it should. I'm ok with being totally wrong too, happens all the time.

bigdrums I kinda planted them too close so I think double trunks is out.

Oh yeah other big news, for me at it is, we are buying the 2 lots a crossed the street, a 60' x 100' square, and that connects to 2 more lots that I own now then a lot owned by someone else that I use now for parking then 3 more lots that we own, gotta clear out a old junk trailer out then I have a growing space right at my house of 120'x100' plus, yippy. We'll be putting in a green house too. I'm all excited.