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Red soil for growing grapes.
As with all plants, correct soil pH is critical to healthy growth. Ideally, you’ll check pH the year before you plan to plant grapevines. Use a soil meter, available at many hardware stores or nurseries, or have your soil tested at your county extension service.
Grapevines grow best in soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7, so add any soil amendments indicated by testing. Whenever you add your amendments, make sure to mix them well into the soil at the site you’ve selected for your grapevines.
Grapes tolerate a wide range of soil conditions, from sandy to clay, but good drainage is essential. Also important is a site that gets full sun, or at least morning sun. A small amount of afternoon shade won’t hurt. Make sure you’ve cleared the area of weeds and grass, so there’s no competition for nutrients and water.
If possible, choose a site that’s sheltered from winter winds and removed from frost pockets. The site should offer good air circulation—don’t crowd your grapes in with a lot of other plants, especially as the vine is going to need plenty of room to grow.
Your new vine will require training on a trellis, arbor, or fence—so, make sure you’ve got that in place first. You can even use a stake pounded into the ground to start, and add more stakes and wires between them later as the vine shoots grow.
If you’re planting more than one vine, space them according to variety. The less vigorous table types and the more vigorous wine varieties should be planted 6 to 8 feet apart. Muscadine grapes should be planted 12 to 15 feet apart.
Have you had success growing grapes in your backyard? What kind of site did you choose? Please tell us how you picked your site for planting grapes.
I bought a scuppernong grape from a local box store in Florida. I transplanted three times before it started to flourish. Now the vine is about 50 feet long and produces more grapes than I can use. The most difficult part is keeping the aphids off when the leaves and blossoms begin in early spring. I don’t use chemicals on any of my garden so I spray a mix of garlic oil, a couple drops of liquid Dawn, and a tablespoon of Murphy’s oil soap. add this to a quart of water and spray with any type of hand sprayer. This year was the hardest so I would up spraying three times before getting a handle on it. I make grape jam and use them for just eating enjoyment. These grapes are a bronze color with thick skin and lots of seeds. They get morning sun with good runoff. I grow them on the fence with some extra horizontal chicken wire braced at each post. This makes a great bed-like arbor as I train each section to stay on the fence. Keeping the weeds and grass away from the base is important. the rest is happy grapes and satisfied vine keeper.
I am in the arid zone in Australia and have had a ‘Flame’ table grape growing for several years. We put up taught wires strung between metal posts. After the first year we found we had to put straining on the posts because the weight and strength of the vine was pulling the posts inwards! We have the vine planted in front of our veranda and have good crops from it. The only issue I have is that the grapes are small. When I researched this I found that there is a hormone powder that you can use on them, but I’m not keen on this. I also read that the main vine can be carefully ringbarked at a certain time, and this stops the flow of the sap back down to the roots. Apparently it all goes to the grapes instead. I have never tried this either, but it would be good to hear from anyone who has and what results they got. Out grapes are beautiful and sweet and the local birds love them even more than us hahaha. We net the vine just before the grapes start to ripen but there are always some that grow at the ends that the birds can get to. I really don’t mind sharing with them. They bring such pleasure watching their antics in the garden.
Years ago I built an arc like thing to grow grapes for my own use. The arc was 8′ tall; 4′ wide and 2′ deep. I nailed thin slats on the outside so the grapes had space to vine out They grew up and across and started to grow down the other side. They was in an open area of the yard so there was sun and great drainage. Two vines and I got over a 5 gallon bucket off of each. I can’t tell you how many I gave away. I sold my home and I want to start growing grapes again. I had Concord and a green grape inwhich I can’t recall the name. Are there any sweet grapes that I can buy just for eating ?
It must have been sad to leave behind your grapes when you moved. Please check out our plant profiles for some ideas for table (fresh eating) grapes to plant at your new home. Some great options are Valiant, Saint Theresa, Somerset, Neptune, Canadice, Joy, Himrod, Niagara, Reliance and Scuppernong. Let us know if you choose one of these varieties or something else and how it works out for you.
Happy Gardening!