What can you make bad tasting wine taste good with,other than another kind of alcohol?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on January 31, 2010

What can you make bad tasting wine taste good with,other than another kind of alcohol? What non alcoholic thing can you add to make crappy wine better?

soda water

fruit juice

sparkling water

i dunno try anything lol

If grapes work as laxatives, and so does chocolate, then what would chocolate covered raisins do to you?

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I’m just wondering cause that’s like a mixture of grapes and chocolate. If I eat alot would I get diarhea?

Nothing really happens unless you eat a lot a lot, then usually I get a bit of a stomachache.

I am growing grapes. What can I do to ensure that they will grow sweet?

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The grapes are just starting to appear….what kind of fertilizer/materials can I use to help them grow big and sweet? someone suggested sugar water, would that help?
seriously, now……..this is NOT a sexual innuendo

I think sugar water will only attract ants. To get sweet tasty grapes, you must give your plants everything a grape needs. "Tender Loving Care" is needed to get the sweetest grapes. Full sun, fertilizer, water, etc. is very important for grapes. Cheers!!

what should I do with an old grape vine?

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I have recently moved house and have a mature grape vine in the greenhouse. What should I feed it? When should I prune it? Should I water it?

Assuming you want it to produce fruit:

You will want to prune them back at the end of the season, as grapes only produce fruit on new growth. You will only need to water it three times throughout the season: at the very beginning of the season, at the time it is done flowering and just starting to grow baby grapes, and at the very end of the growing season.

How do I make homemade wine with the least amount of ingredients?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on January 27, 2010

I’m currently overseas and would like to make some homemade wine, or some "hooch." If anyone has a recipe that doesn’t require a lot of resources, that would be awesome.

If men in prison can make wine with apple juice, then you can do it too hunny!

Here is a link to tell you how to make homemade wine.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Homemade-Wine/Detail.aspx

Good Luck

Cheers

Any good recipe for grape jam that involves a blender and me not straining of pealing grapes?

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I have these green grapes in the yard and don’t think I will eat them all.
I don’t think they have seed but they are small about marble sized

I don’t have a recipe that omits the straining step, but it seems to me that grapes must work like other fruits — if you strain the cooked grapes you get jelly and if you don’t strain the mixture you have jam. Grape jelly is more common, but we now understand that there are all kinds of great things in the skins. Go ahead and make jam. Just skip the straining step if you like. The attached recipe for jelly uses a food processor, but I don’t see why you couldn’t use a blender. You may have to blend smaller batches rather than everything at once if your blender is not powerful.

I have a question about growing grapes?

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A couple of years ago I bought a grape tree and planted it in my backyard. This year i was very excited when is finaly grew grapes. When they became ripe i was very dissapointed to find out they tasted nothing like grapes. They were sour and sort of tasted like the smell of fertilizer. Do you think the grass fertilizer got to it? I appreciate any help.

What is a grape tree? Grapes grow on vines, and the vines twine all over the place. If what you have is truly a tree, it is not a grape!

It is very easy to grow grapes, and they take about 3 years to start making fruit. As for fertilizer tastes, that would happen if you use a fertilizer during the time when you are about to pick the grapes. Avoid using fertilizers when you have fruit ready to pick.

Sour flavor, if you do indeed have grapes, could also be because you harvested the grapes too soon. It takes many months for grapes to grow, and then sweeten.

I have lots of grapes, and they currently have big clusters of very green grapes. I won’t even try tasting one until the end of August when they start getting a bit of red color to them.

Some grapes stay green when ripe, but will turn sweet, with time. usually a green grape will turn a pale green, with almost a yellowish color when ripe. Taste one and see.

Some grapes turn red when ripe, others turn purple, some turn black. It varies with the type of grape planted. All grapes turn sweet when ripe. They get so sweet, that if left on the vine, bees and wasps will come to them for the sugar.

Maybe you just harvested too soon.

Where do you live? There is probably a certain month when grapes start maturing. If you are in the USA, most likely, late summer is the earliest for a grape harvest, possibly into October.

The good news is next year, your grape (if it is a grape vine, not a tree of some sort) will have even more grapes.

how do I take care of a grape vine?

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the grape vine is overgrown and it is spring- I am wondering if I need to trim it back for it to grow.

http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/grapes.html

Establishment:

Three years are normally required to establish a grape planting. Vines planted for training on a trellis are normally placed 8 feet apart, while those planted for training on an arbor can be placed 4 feet apart. Before growth begins the second year, a support for the vines–either a trellis or an arbor–must be provided.

Care of vines the second year is similar to that of the first year. A system for training the vines should be selected during the second year. Vines are trained to a particular system by pruning and tying the canes to the support system. In some methods of training grapevines, the canes are tied to wires above the trunk and arms of the vines. Such training works well where grapevines are to be grown on a fence or in an upright position. In another method of training, the canes are tied to the wires and the fruit bearing shoots are allowed to droop or hang down. A third method is the cordon type training system. Here the fruiting canes are developed from a horizontal extension of the trunk called a cordon. If canes are pruned long, they can be tied to the lower wires. If pruned short, they hang free. One of the most common training systems is called the single curtain/cordon bilateral system.

Pruning and Training:

Annual pruning is important in maintaining a uniform yearly production of quality fruit. The best time to prune grapevines is in the dormant season after all danger of severe cold weather. Learning to prune grapevines requires practice and experience.

Fertilizer and Lime:

Grapes perform best where the soil pH is between 5.0 and 6.0. Apply lime only when soil analysis indicates a need. Apply 8 ounces of 10-10-10 fertilizer per plant seven days after planting. Increase the amount of fertilizer to 1 pound of 10-10-10 in the second year and 1 1/2 pounds per vine in the third and later years, approximately 30 days before new growth begins in the spring. Do not concentrate fertilizer at the base of the trunk; keep fertilizer 6 to 12 inches from the trunk and spread evenly under the spread of the vine.

During the third season, some harvest may be expected from the vines. The first full crop, however, will not be produced until about the fourth or fifth year.

Cultural Practices:

It is important that cultural practices of maintaining soil fertility, weed control, soil moisture conservation and insect and disease control be continued not only during the third year, but in subsequent years as well. Control weeds by hand hoeing or with plastic or organic mulch. A clean area 11/2 to 2 feet on each side of the vine is necessary. Do not damage trunks with a hoe or chemicals.

Selecting disease tolerant cultivars, good sanitation practices, managing vine canopies for good air movement, pest scouting and an effective spray program are all part of a successful pest management program. Common grape diseases are black rot, downy mildew, powdery mildew, phomopsis cane and leaf spot and botrytis bunch rot or gray rot. Significant insect and mite pests on grapes are grape berry moth, Japanese beetle, grape flea beetle, European red mite, grape root borer and grape phylloxera.

Our grape vines where attacked by Japanese beetles. Can we still help the grapes ripen?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on January 25, 2010

We have 3 grape vines in our back yard. Both last year and this year the vines where heavy with lots of grapes. Last year, Japanese beetles ate most of the leaves and the fruit just died without ever ripening. This year we put out a bunch of beetle traps. We had 15 pounds of dead beetles, but this was not enough, so we started spraying. The spay protected the leaves, but I’m afraid it was too late. About 20 percent of our leaves are damaged. Is there anything we can do at this point to save our grape harvest this year? Should we prune off bunches that start to die? Would this help other bunches survive?

Prune off all the dead leaves that have been damaged. Some fertilizer,will be helpful.

What is the best way to relocate a happy grape vine?

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I have a great producing grape vine that my best friend has planted 4 years ago, but she planted it too close to the AC unit!

yes, wait till the leaves are off the plant this winter….

if by ‘relocate’ you mean get it growing off in another direction, that’s the time for that, too….

but if you move a ‘happy’ vine , it won’t be happy again for a long while…. you’ll take a chance at losing it….look for info here, tho, and best of luck to you…..

http://www.google.com/search?q=transplant+mature+grapevine&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

http://www.my-grape-vine.com/blog/replanting_a_grape_vine/