From Vine To Table: What You Need to Know About Growing Great Grapes in Your Backyard with Gwen Hoheisel

In this episode of The Evergreen Thumb podcast, we venture into the world of growing grapes. Whether you dream of making your own wine, enjoying fresh table grapes, or simply adding beauty to your garden with grapevines, this episode is packed with tips and insights for success.

Our expert guest Gwen Hoheisel shares tips on how to choose the right grape varieties for your needs, planting and caring for grapevines, different pruning techniques for optimal growth and fruit production and pest and disease management strategies.

Whether you’re a novice gardener or have a green thumb, this episode has something for everyone interested in growing grapes at home. Tune in to discover how you can turn your backyard into a mini vineyard and enjoy the fruits of your labor!

• Growing Winegrapes in Maritime Western Washington (Replaces EB2001)
• Chip Bud Grafting in Washington State Vineyards
• Protecting Grapevines from Winter Injury
• Grape: Botrytis bunch rot (Gray mold)
• Grape: Grape erineum mite
• Grape-Leafhopper
• Clean Plant Center Northwest | Washington State University
• Clean Plant Process | NCPN
• Certified Material in PNW | Clean Plant Center Northwest | Washington State University
• WSU Extension Benton-Franklin Counties
• WSU Extension Benton-Franklin Counties Master Gardener Facebook
  
• American grape varieties listed include Concord, Niagara, and Catawba
• Hybrid grape varieties are Interlaken and Hemrod

[00:00:00] Erin Landon: Welcome to this episode of the Evergreen Thumb. My guest today is Gwen Hoheisel. Gwen is a regional extension specialist for Washington State University, focusing on perennial fruit crops and more specifically sustainable pest management, blueberry production, and application technologies. She has degrees in Zoology from the University of Maryland and Entomology from Pennsylvania State University, focusing on Integrated Pest Management and insect diversity.

[00:00:29] Erin Landon: Gwen’s here today to talk to us about growing grapes at home. Gwen, thanks for joining us today. Welcome to the show. Gwen, why don’t you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and the work you do for WSU?

[00:00:40] Gwen Hoheisel: Yeah. So I was trained as an entomologist, but I work a hundred percent in extension, which means that I do applied research and education, primarily with fruit growers. So I work in tree fruit, grapes, and berries.

Erin Landon: And where are you based out of?

Gwen Hoheisel: So I am based in, Benton Franklin counties, but I get to travel all over just because our markets are all over but I do get to interact quite a bit with the Benton Franklin Master Gardeners.

How to Get Started Growing Great Grapes

[00:01:11] Erin Landon: So for home gardeners who are interested in growing grapes, what are some of the essential considerations before getting started?

[00:01:19] Gwen Hoheisel: The first is use. So, if you’re going to grow grapes, it’s, um, what are you going to use them for? And then how much do you want to maintain them? So, you know, there’s a wide variety of grapes from, there’s American varieties that are native to the U. S., there’s European varieties that are not native, and then there’s hybrid varieties.

And, some have seeds, you know, some you can even buy seedless. So what is the purpose of it? And where do you want to grow it? So do you want it for juice? Or are you trying to make wine? Are you trying to just make jam? So all of these would sort of dictate, um, the variety. But also there’s a lot of information out on the internet on how to grow a wine grape or even a juice grape, and really they’ll grow just about anywhere on just about anything.

So decide if you want it, in a bigger, more commercial style production. Do you want this to be a nice cover on a pergola? So the use of what you’re going to do with it and how much you want to maintain are your first steps in deciding for what grape you’re going to plant in your backyard.

Why Not Plant a Traditional Wine Grape?

[00:02:41] Erin Landon: So why would someone consider not planting a traditional wine grape?

Gwen Hoheisel: Traditional wine grapes that we think of, like, they belong to a species called Vitis vinifera. So those are things like that you would drink. Cabernet, Pinot Gris. So those are European varieties. When, um, they came to the United States and were imported, they did not evolve with some of the pests and diseases that we have in the United States.

So primarily the first big pest is powdery mildew. So a lot of our American varieties, evolved with powdery mildew and they became resistant and also they’re a little more cold hardy, can survive in different places, right? Higher elevations and we have a lot of higher elevations in Washington that might push the envelope of planting a European-style wine grape, but also different flavors.

So when you start looking at it, if you can look at varieties that are American species or hybrid species, then you will have to manage or spray powdery mildew less. So you don’t want mildew grapes because whatever you’re going to use them for, you probably weren’t going to use them for that.

Erin Landon: Right.

[00:03:57] Gwen Hoheisel: And, you really, if you’re in cold regions, don’t want them to, um, suffer and you want, don’t want to deal with cold hardiness management. I mean, we do a lot of that in Eastern Washington and there’s a lot of tricks of the trade, but you want to be able to enjoy this and have success and, clean fruit, good fruit.

So thinking about, um, fewer pesticides, easier growth, and then often a lot of really interesting flavor profiles come from different varieties of. Um, American or hybrid grapes.

Varieties of American and Hybrid Grapes to Grow

[00:04:32] Erin Landon: So what are some examples of varieties of American or hybrid grapes that someone might like to grow?

[00:04:37] Gwen Hoheisel: So there’s a lot of American grape varieties.

One that people know quite a bit is probably Concord and Concord grapes. You know, it’s what you would have in a lot of Welch’s juice grapes or, you know, grape jelly and jam. But it tastes totally different when it’s pure Concord because it’s got a nice stronger, flavor to it. So what you get in, store-bought juice is a mixture of different grapes.

So some Thompson Seedless, some Concord, et cetera. But so there’s Concord, there’s Niagara is a nice one, there’s Catawba, and then you have some hybrids that are Interlaken, Hemrod, and then also some others that might be available in your nursery catalog. But those are all really good varieties to try a flavor profile with.

Pest or Disease Considerations When Growing Great Grapes

[00:05:36] Erin Landon: Okay. Besides the powdery mildew, are there other pests or disease considerations to take into account?

[00:05:42] Gwen Hoheisel: Well, pests and diseases do like grapes. But, so the one that a lot of homeowners get, um, is, if you can get a variety that isn’t, um, for the biggest disease besides powdery mildew would be Botrytis. And so you do, um, have to manage those.

The problem with the diseases is that you can’t wait until you see them because once you see them, they’ve already ruined that fruit. So, if you knew that you had powdery mildew last year, you really have to treat with um, fungicides. You know, basically from 10-inch shoot growth until pea-sized berries, especially if you’re growing wine grapes.

And, and so that’s time before you even see anything. So you have to be diligent about it. But then also a lot of homeowners worry about, leaf hoppers. And so when you go out to your bush and, or your vine and you see little things, It’s little white things flying around and jumping off of it, it’s very often leafhopper and you can sustain a lot of leafhoppers in a backyard without significant damage to the tree. But if you really wanted the earth to the vine, if you really wanted this to be pergola grape where you’re sitting underneath of it and you’re having your dinner, you might not love the leafhoppers there.

So, um, but leafhoppers. are susceptible if you treat them early. You, they, they crawl around when they’re nymphs and if you turn a leaf over and you can see about 10, um, crawling around on a leaf, so little white things crawling around, then you can treat it with, um, organic or non-organic pesticide and it will be, it will, um, usually take care of that problem.

And then the last one that’s really common in, homeowners but not in commercial production is Blister Mites. So you, a lot of homeowners will see a leaf and, um, it looks like it has warts all over the leaf and the leaf gets curled, um, in pockets and little wart-like structures. And underneath that is in those little pockets on the underside are little mites.

So my recommendation there is you don’t want to get on a mite cycle. There’s a, a huge number of beneficial and predatory mites that, that you could, um, try to keep under control. Other like Twospotted Spider Mites and all these other mites that might be an issue. So if you see these blisters on your leaves. Pick the leaves, throw them in a bag, and throw them away in the trash can. Don’t just drop them to the ground because then you just have the pest on the ground, but just get rid of those leaves. So I try to recommend that first.

If you’re pretty diligent about that, you won’t have a problem. And they really are only like a backyard problem because, um, and they’re probably the ones that are just brought in the most, but that’s because we tend not to spray very much in backyards not as much as what a commercial production would do.

So, you know, it’s probably even a little bit of a good sign that you’re applying a little less chemicals. However, if you see it, you don’t want it to get out of hand or, um, have too many. So just stay on top of it and look at the leaves and if you have little, blister-like or little wort-like structures with curled leaves on them, just pick them and throw them away.

Soil Considerations When Growing Great Grapes

[00:09:16] Erin Landon: So are there soil considerations for growing grapes as far as, um, nutrients or composition?

[00:09:25] Gwen Hoheisel: So around the world, if you actually just, you, if you looked at, um, and Googled pictures where grapes grow, they can pretty much grow on rocks. So, um, however, you do, so you do want to plant them in fairly neutral soils.

So if you have very acidic. are very basic soil, you know, just in different parts of the state. If your soil is a three or a four as your pH, that’s not going to allow it to absorb a lot of nutrients, right? So somewhere in the range between six and eight, the grapes will still do fine, right? And then for other fertilizer considerations, so you’re not growing this, for, probably maximum yields or for, um, selling these to, you know, a specific winery or you’re enjoying them based on what your purpose is.

So the more nitrogen that you give, the more leaves that are going to grow. So maybe you’re planting this grape in a nice shaded area and it’s going to go over pergola. Okay, great. Then give it a little bit more nitrogen so that you have more vegetation and it gives you that purpose and you will still get nice grapes hanging down.

But say you decide I want to put in a quarter of an acre of these and I need them to be more manageable and I’m going to have a fruiting zone and so forth and I want to minimize my amount of vegetation, so there’s um, a proper crop load balance. Then you need to maybe look at it when it’s, look to see that there’s not so much vegetation, and you might pull back some of that nitrogen.

But, for a general purpose, Right? Is, um, when you buy a fertilizer, it has three numbers on the back of it. So it’s going to have three numbers that say 10-10-10, or if you buy Miracle-Gro, I think it’s something like 47-0-0, but those three numbers mean the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that’s in the bag.

So, If you were going to go for a bag, I kind of never recommend Miracle-Gro ever on something because it’s such high nitrogen. You need to really just apply just a little bit, and you might get out of control with the vegetative growth. So that much nitrogen might be something really nice for an annual flower, but maybe not so great for your, um, perennial grape vines.

So if you look for something that’s in the range of a 10 10 10, which is common, then you, um, you basically on a backyard grape over the season want to put about three and a half pounds, or if you take a half a cup measurement of that and you sprinkle it around the root three times you’ll be just fine.

Fruit Zones When Growing Great Grapes

[00:12:35] Erin Landon: You mentioned fruit zone when you’re growing on a large scale. Does that have to do with how they’re pruned or? What is that exactly?

[00:12:42] Gwen Hoheisel: Somewhat. So, a lot of people have seen or pictures or go to wine country, um, and so you can see where they trellis a grape to have the cordon or the vegetative pieces on one wire or one area. And the fruit grows down. And sometimes they, they, you trellis and wire all the leaves to the top. You don’t have to do that, especially in a backyard grape.

If you want to make this go along a fence line on the top of the fence line and have things fall down, that’s okay too. But the fruit zone is generally the area in the vine where the fruit is. If you have made most of the woody material, And the canes and cordons go across the top of a fence line, then a little bit below the top of the fence is going to be the fruiting zone because it’s where all the fruit is.

If you have it growing on a pergola, probably if you look up, that’s going to be where all your fruit is and that would be your fruiting zone.

Erin Landon: Okay, that makes sense.

[00:13:58] Gwen Hoheisel: It’s where your fruit is and, you know, it’s easy when you’re looking at wine country because all the fruits are in one region because they standardize it.

But in backyards, we get to do lots of creative and fun ways to grow it. So, it’s make sure the fruit is going to hang down from someplace you can easily access it and get to it and it’s easy to harvest and pick for yourself.

Considerations for Selecting Cuttings and Starts When Growing Great Grapes

[00:14:11] Erin Landon: What should people consider when buying cuttings or plants?

[00:14:16] Gwen Hoheisel: So, um, in Washington state, you are obviously in a state that has a large commercial industry.

Sometimes when you go through a catalog, you’ll see both for like tree fruit and grapes, it’ll say cannot be sold or shipped to Washington. And that’s because we have quarantine rules. And way back when people would put things and they’d call them suitcase varieties. You know, they’d take clippings from all over the world, put them in their suitcase and come back.

But the problem is, is that we move a lot of viruses, bugs, and diseases that way. And, you know, we didn’t have a lot of the viruses that we have now. We introduced them, and we introduced them from either commercial or home use. So, it’s, it’s really a struggle. So, if you are, buying plants, then buy them from a certified nursery within the state of Washington.

Don’t go down to California and bring something home because you’re going to bring home more than what you wanted anyway, possibly. So, so really try to buy from a nursery within the state of Washington. We test and we send out canes to different nurseries. Certified nursery or disease-free means this: we, at WSU through the Clean Plant Center, will test for certain viruses diseases, and insects and look to make sure they’re clean.

Then they spread those out to a mother block and then the mother block goes out to nurseries. That’s the most simple way to explain it. When you are buying from them, you’re guaranteeing that they are about the most, disease-free that you can possibly get.

Why wouldn’t you, if you’re buying a perennial crop, want to invest in um, the healthiest plant you possibly can, and then you also support your industries? So you don’t want to put something in the ground that you’re going to want to keep in the ground for the next 10 years that you’re starting off with a weak or um, diseased plant.

So the most important thing, buy certified disease-free plants within the state of Washington, and don’t bring any critters home with you from vacation.

[00:16:38] Erin Landon: For nurseries that would carry those, are those going to be more your, um, your small chains or your independent nurseries as opposed to …

[00:16:48] Gwen Hoheisel: There’s actually, if, um, somebody Googles clean plant center, there’s actually a list of certified nurseries on their website and they get inspected. There is a, there’s a whole structure and a system for, um, the clean plant center where everything gets tested.

Pruning Techniques for Grape Vines

[00:17:05] Erin Landon: Can you tell us a little bit about some of, the pruning techniques for grape vines? I know it’s going to be different for a commercial versus a home grower, but are there kind of some general guidelines on how to manage or prune them?

[00:17:18] Gwen Hoheisel: Yep. So, um, when you look at a cane, um, so it’s winter and the leaves have fallen off and you go up to the cane and you can see, um, little fat buds and in that, that bud, you know, will grow to become a shoot and it can have fruit on it. And so, when you, if you’re in a cold region, the very first thing I would do is wait and see, um, if there was really bad weather that caused damage.

So, for example, this year in 2024, in Eastern Washington, there were subzero temperatures in some regions where grapes were growing. Within a bud, there are three little buds that grow. There’s a primary, secondary, and tertiary bud. And the primary bud, if it survives, it’s also the least cold hardy, but if it survives, it gives you everything that you’ve always seen out there. All the leaves, all the fruit.

The secondary gives you a reduced amount of fruit, but it does still give you what you need. Leaves and much less crop, but then if the only thing that survives, the most cold hardy is the tertiary bud, and that will just give you, um, leaves. And I think it’s just totally amazing that the grapevine has evolved to have all these mechanisms, you know, to be able, within that single bud you see, there’s three other smaller buds that, um, allow it to continue to survive and thrive. Right?

So the very first rule is if you’re in a region that has a cool climate and experiences cold or harsh winters, and you know that you got, you know, single digits or below, then you can go out and look and see if you’re really an adventurous Master Gardener.

You can slice open a bud and you can look to see if there’s, um, green living, three living buds inside of it, or you can wait until you see growth and then prune right after. You want to prune as quickly as you can. So you can wait until spring, see what buds out, and then prune and get rid of things. But that’s only, only, only on severe, harsh winters, right?

So now let’s assume everything is normal.

So the number you, you have to go back. There is a balance. The source, the sink, and the use. So, when, um, a source of energy is the leaves, because they’re going to come up to the, the leaves that reach the sun. If you have leaves underneath a pergola, it’s not seeing the sun, and so it’s not a source of energy, because if you’re getting energy from the sun, it goes into the leaves, into the chlorophyll, and then it creates energy for the plant and the fruit to develop.

So, if you want to grow a huge plant, you need enough leaves that see the sun, not buried five layers under, but they have to see the sun to provide enough energy to give you the fruit. And you’re going to get kind of a balance with this.

So this, the sink in this, is leaves that don’t see sun and fruit. Fruit doesn’t really, you know, give the plant a lot of energy. It takes the energy and makes it into sugars, and the good things that we like about the fruit, right? And so, um, You have to balance how many leaves to how much fruit you’re going to have. That’s one thing to think about, but then what you’re going to use it for.

So if you are growing this along a fence and you really don’t want it to go down very far, but you have some solid wood at the top of a fence, and then you want it to drape down. You look at those big buds and one year, write it down. Say, I’m going to leave four buds or I’m going to leave five buds. two buds and you can even do it in different sections and then you’re going to see how far it grows based on your fertility program and what’s going on.

So you’ll get into sort of a rhythm. It’s hard for me, like if we were in commercial wine grapes, I could tell you exactly how many buds we were going to leave and so forth because we are more regulated. But if you’re going to plant these in all different scenarios, what you’re trying to do is kind of customize and learn what you want for your place.

Spacing Considerations for Growing Great Grapes

So, if you have a main cordon going along the top fence line, look at each cane and try to keep about somewhere between two and four buds. And that’s going to give you, each one of those is going to give you another branch. Right? Also, try to keep all of those canes about a fist width apart. So you can literally look at a cane, put your hand next to it, and if there’s a bunch of other shoots there, cut them out.

So space out a little bit because otherwise it’s going to get too crowded and it becomes overwhelming for the vine, right? That source sync relationship gets way out of balance. So now if you’re growing up a per, like a pergola type environment, you’re going to have a huge, trunk, basically, that might be growing all the way to the top, and then you just want the vegetation going over the top.

On that one, if your canes are actually trained, so a lot of times people will train, you know, like five or six big leaders, five or six big canes that are in that pergola at the top. And then from there, they have the smaller, um, canes coming off of it. So with that one, start, um, keep it shorter because you don’t want so much coming down, right?

You do have great sunlight, but you want the fruit to hang down and not all these vines coming down. So again, start to look at each of those and try to go back to like, look at the shoot and count two or three buds and clip it off. then you should be able to maintain a vegetative-to-fruit balance with it.

But it’s just that you’re going to have probably more thick leader canes if you’re on a pergola than you would on a fence line. You probably only have one big shoot going down a fence line, one big cordon going down a fence line. I’m trying not to use all the wine terms so that it makes sense to someone, you know if you’re listening.

Common Grape Growing Terminology

[00:23:42] Erin Landon: So maybe we should clarify then what is a cordon because I know that’s not one I’m familiar with.

[00:23:45] Gwen Hoheisel: So you’re going to have like, you’re going to have a trunk that comes up from the ground, and then you’re going to train shoots. And the shoots that get really thick, that you are having as your permanent wood structure, that becomes a cordon.

[00:23:58] Gwen Hoheisel: And then you’re going to have canes that come off of it that you’re going to cut annually and take off somewhere else. So if you think about it you have on any type, it doesn’t even matter a pergola. So if you have a trunk coming out of the ground, then you say, so what are my permanent pieces of, wood and where am I going to go?

[00:24:16] Gwen Hoheisel: So if you’re doing a pergola, do you have one along each beam on the top? Well, so then you would have a pergola. Basically, six thicker pieces of wood, which would be six cordons, and then annually you’re going to have different types of canes that come off of that, but a top along the top of a fence line, you basically have one cordon because it’s going to run along the top of the court, the fence line.

[00:24:36] Gwen Hoheisel: Okay. Does that make sense?

[00:24:37] Erin Landon: Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Gwen Hoheisel: Good!

Erin Landon: So when you were talking about the buds and how there’s actually three of them in there, If it’s, say, a milder winter, it’s not a real cold, will all three of them typically sprout? Or just the primary?

[00:24:52] Gwen Hoheisel: Nope. Just the primary. Right? Just the primary. But what you want to do is, if it’s really cold, you wait to see what’s coming out so you don’t cut off too many.

So I don’t know if I closed the loop on that one, but if you experience cold damage, say you look at your cane and you look all the way down and it’s really long and you’re gonna cut some off. And I can’t guarantee you if you cut two off, are those two going to come out? We don’t know, right? So if all those buds inside die, what you want to do is wait and see what comes out.

So on that year, those two buds that are at the bottom may be dead, but you might have three or four that are at the top. And so of course, if you normally leave three, you’re going to skip the two bottom that didn’t sprout. Then you’re going to come up to the top three and then you’re going to trim off the last you know, six that might be on a, on a cane.

And so on a really, really cold winter, that’s what you try to think about, is you look to see what’s coming out and what’s sprouting, and if I typically leave three, then what three are still good on that cane?

How Has Climate Change Affected the Grape Growing Process?

[00:26:02] Erin Landon: Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the um, how climate change is influencing how things grow and how things thrive. So I’m wondering if climate change has had much of an effect on grape growing and if are they adapting or what are they seeing. What are people seeing as problems or benefits that are coming out of climate change?

[00:26:25] Gwen Hoheisel: So probably for, um, a backyard homeowner, you’re not going to see huge effects. Except for the fact that climate change is about more variability and more extremes.

So when I just said, hey, on your really harsh winters, we could see more extremes. When we are talking about the middle of summer, several years ago, we were almost 120 in Eastern Washington.

So, now that’s an extreme that we never saw before and you’re going to, that plant is going to need more water, and actually the plant won’t even photosynthesize, the stomata close up when it’s that hot and so, um, so it, it has a great effect on the commercial industry that’s trying to optimize it for every bottle of wine that gets put out on the market and you know, some, I won’t be comprehensive in this, but just some things to think about is again, even for a grower, there’s no typical year anymore.

So every year has new challenges and new opportunities. Um, but also, every, cultivar has basically, um, the amount of time it needs to ripen. And some, some are very adapted to cooler regions, hotter regions. So an opportunity is, is. If we were, if you were growing grapes in a typically cooler region, then, um, you might be able to take advantage of some grapes that you never did before because they took a really long amount of days and a long amount of warm days, or we call it growing degree days or heat units for that grape to ripen.

So there’s an opportunity. However, the downside of that is, is if your region was very, so if you have the, a region in Germany or a region in Washington, that’s very well known already for that type of wine grape. If it becomes too hot, um, and it was a more cool climate grape. May not grow as well.

You’re going to have different flavor profiles within that wine grape that maybe, um, don’t make it as desirable for that region, right? So for generations and generations in Europe, they always grew the same grapes because they knew it. But now looking at, this, this pairing of the region with variety is changing.

Because our weather and our climate are changing.

Wildfires and Their Impact on Growing Grapes

[00:29:01] Erin Landon: So how have recent rash of wildfires, especially in eastern Washington, how has that affected the grape growing?

[00:29:09] Gwen Hoheisel: So there’s a lot of research at WSU about that. Um, wildfires, they impart smoke, obviously. And so there’s a thing called smoke taint. And if you are in a region where the wildfire was prolonged, um, you can smoke and ash and so forth on the grapes.

For you as a backyard person, wash the grapes off. Perfectly great. And it takes care of it for you. For an entire wine industry, there is no pre-wash step where we would wash all the smoke and soot and taint off of those grapes. So there is a lot of good research that’s going on about alternatives to it.

But for you as [a backyard person] how can we manage smoke taint? But for you as a backyard person, it’s amazing and a great opportunity. You would probably wash your fruit off anyway, wash it off and it should be okay. Assuming that you’re not in, the actual fire region where it sort of scorched your plants.

[00:30:16] Erin Landon: Does the smoke itself affect production or the health of the plant or just the soot and ash primarily?

[00:30:25] Gwen Hoheisel: So there is, um, it’s early work on all of these crops and, um, and I’m going to, I don’t have all the papers in front of me, so I’ll give you sort of the general overview of it. So we have a lot of like, um, sun that is intense and comes down and beats down. on the leaves. The leaves can only take so much heat before they actually have their little respiration holes.

So they have little respiration valves called stomata and it, it’s what, um, They use to allow CO2 to escape and a bunch of other mechanisms. If those close, then everything sort of shuts down. So in some fruit, you know, they are seeing that, hey, if you put shade, so you have a lot of, if you’ve come to Eastern Washington, you can see sometimes shade netting over, um, fruit trees.

And they’re showing that, hey, the, clouds and the smoke actually are allowing some UV to come through but allowing some shade so the plant isn’t as hot and so forth. But it’s really not the kind of shade you’d really like, right? Not for someone’s environment and also because of the smoke flavors. It’s not that type of shade.

But your plant isn’t going to be, um, harmed. It’s safe. It’s still going to grow. You can still water it, give it nitrogen, and so forth. There might be some benefits that it got a little bit of shade, but it’s, it’s not the greatest shade because there are some negative consequences with it also.

Trellis Systems for the Home Gardener

[00:32:02] Erin Landon: You talked a lot about the pergola as an example of a way to use a grapevine. What are some other trellis systems for the home gardener that would be, if maybe you’d not necessarily want to use them for fruit production?

[00:32:19] Gwen Hoheisel: For fruit production, you can grow a grape and train a grape around anything. So, um, I see sometimes, um, people will put up teepees with, um, peas. So say you have some neat structure like that, that you would like to grow a grapevine up, grow it.

Um, the side of a, of a, um, gardening shed. And because you think it would be pretty, it’s way better than Ivy growing up there with the roots that would go into your building. So any, and then I also see people where they’ll put a tall, so you get a really nice American variety that grows, you know, it can grow a long trunk and you can make a really high, um, Um, high trellis wire at the top for it to grow across and those varieties just grow, the canes grow down.

And so you make like a curtain or a fence out of that, right? And it’s a living fence in a living area. So, um, honestly, if you can think about any place that you’d like to have shade and a fenced area, you can imagine what you can do with that grape, right? So it’s, It doesn’t have to be a pergola and it doesn’t have to be just a trellis.

It can be a fence, it can be up a building, it can be any of those structures. Can make a teepee for grandchildren to go into.

Final Thoughts on Growing Grapes

Erin Landon: Is there anything that you’d like to add?

Gwen Hoheisel: The WSU Master Gardeners do have some resources on growing grapes. And I think that they’re, um, in most of the county offices. They know how to get in touch with us if you have additional questions.

But there is a wealth of information that you could get really particular. But in the grapes, you should have fun. Pick a variety that sets you up for a minimal amount of work with a really interesting flavor. And we’ve made jams and jellies out of like all kinds of different Champagne grapes or Muscat or the Interlaken, all those ones, and they all have a super interesting flavor to them.

[00:34:30] Gwen Hoheisel: And so have fun with that one because it’s super easy. If you set yourself up for success in the beginning.

[00:34:37] Erin Landon: Okay, and I did find a couple of, WSU publications. One was, Protecting Grapevines from Winter Injury and then the other one is Growing Grapes in the Maritime Climate. So, in Western Washington. Yeah.