Cold Hardy Grapes and Vines: Fall Field Notes

amur grape seedlings. plugs, seed started this spring. most of the mass is in the roots, we did a few kinds of grape seedlings this year and they worked out, you get a small starter plant with a few buds on top that's ready to take off in the second year. I would plant these with plenty of mulch. amur grape , vitus amurensis is a wild grape that's very cold hardy. the more common species around here is riparia, the riverbank grape.

time to collect hops, as soon as they get some brown. the flowers are sticky inside and smell like an IPA. a few seeds will be stuck in each one.

sweet seedless grapes, ripe even with the light color. growing in zone 3. maybe Somerset?

trying grapes in this sunny spot against a stucco wall. should be a good micro climate. it was just sand, so I added about 8 composted straw bales, 2 wheel barrows of soil, 2 more of old wood chip. then fifteen varieties of grapes. what a job, been thinking about it all summer. will get trellis or arbour once they get established. hah and probably get thinned if they all survive. #grapes are both hard and easy to grow here, just need the right location

brianna is a tasty green grape that can handle -40 .. once the vines are established. I’ve seen several around southern manitoba trellised without any winter protection, though somewhere sheltered like against a building makes a good micro climate. added seeds to our shop, seedlings won’t be exactly the same but you’ll likely get some green grape with similar cold hardiness.

trying to id these grapes. valiant left, this one right. both zone 3 hardy. mystery grape has red stems, looser clusters. grapes were a little more soft and overripe than valiant so maybe ripens earlier. been in cold storage, both were ripe a while ago. #grapes #valiantgrapes #plantidentification

valiant grapes, perfectly ripe and tasting like concord. these grow at a friend’s place and are fully hardy above the snow along a metal fence in zone 3 -40C. I was lucky enough to collect a box to make some grape jelly, and to restock our seeds. and I’ve been eating grapes all afternoon.

harvested hops this week, mostly for seed. fuggle is supposed to be ok in tea if you blend it.

donated some grapes today that we planted along the fences at @assiniboinefoodforest, thanks to the volunteers who came out and helped despite the wet weather! Grapes were planted along with some fall tasks like mulching and adding vole cages around new fruit trees. The acre sized and well fenced orchard is on fertile soil by the river in Brandon Manitoba, surrounded by public walking trails. An awesome ongoing project fuel entirely by donations and passionate volunteers. #foodforest #orchard

virginia creeper

valiant grapes from softwood, I think the earliest ones from june will be large enough to ship in the spring. In year three with this nursery, finding many rooted cuttings and seedlings do need 1-2 years to get up to what I would consider good transplant size, and even then I should grade them. Something like 1-2 ft of top growth and a decent root mass is a good size for bare root. I’ve ordered tiny plugs with just a few strands of root and they’re difficult to plant out and keep alive, really something small like that needs more time to size up. building intuition about this, interested to know if anyone else would consider grape cuttings for example to only need one season to get up to size for sale. Many prunus need two years for sure, many rooted cuttings only start to grow in the spring.

hops are kinda crazy when you dig them up. i just have this handful for spring orders, all volunteers. variety is fuggle. #hops

hops seeds from a few flowers. We planted some hops around our garden from seed about five years ago and they kind of explode from the ground every spring and cover the fences. Offering these in packs of 100 seeds on our shop now with free shipping. #seeds #hops

Virginia creeper seeds are like little grapes with hard seeds inside. I’ve been propagating them from softwood with good success, and also trying a seedbed this fall to see how quickly they’ll grow. We have extra seeds so they’re available from our site. #propagation