The lush summer growth of the subtropical table grape.
Aloha Everyone,
Mahalo for following our grape work, and now, there is a group of you who received scion wood from us last February, have gone on to grow them out, and are creating their own vineyards on Oahu, Kauai, and Maui. This was always our dream, that in that future, table grape varieites that grow here could also grow well and produce on other islands and in other environments. Remember, Kona isn't the best place for grapes. It used to be... when we had a dependable 6 month rainy and dry season, but since 2018, that has changed. We are receiving both more rain and cloudier days, 2 things that grapes can tolerate but would not be their preference. They love the sun, and heat. Many of you live in areas that have a drier and hotter summer which they love. Different ecosystems have different opportunities and challenges, and this project is still very much in the experimental stage. It takes many many years to introduce a new fruit variety to an area and climate change is another variable asking us to adapt to new emerging variables.
We wanted to update you on our grape project that started in 2015 This is the 9th year of this experiment. Out of the 12 "most promising varieties" listed in our downloadable book "Growing Table Grapes in Subtropial Hawaii" we are harvesting from all 12. We decided this summer to remove all but one of the variety13-B. It was too big with only a few small clusters of grapes. We gave it 7 years to show itself, and it became unmanageable, wanting to crawl over and dominate its neighbors. We're sorry to see it go, but it might do better in another environment that was drier.
Another thing we're learning is that the old growth redwood that we used to build our upright posts that came from old redwood water tanks in Kona, and are beginning to rot at the bottom. This year, we will begin to stabilize them by adding a steel stake behind them.
Gerry holds a cluster of the variety "Everglades." Grapes take 6-8 years before you can tell their potential, so don't get impatient. This variety has taken many years to begin giving a good harvest. Also, the grapes have developed a more complex taste over time, so don't be in a hurry, they have their own time schedule.
Over the past 2-3 weeks we have been harvesting, processing, making juice, freezing some into ice cubes for later drinks, making raisins and Jam and enjoying just eating them out of hand. Grapes have powerful antioxidant properties, and you can find some of the nutritional studies listed in our book toward the end. Here are some photos, that tell the story.
First, we harvest when most of the cluster is fully ripe, and then wash to remove any debris.
We process everything in the outside sink on our porch. Below is a cluster of our best producer so far, Tamiami. This year we pressed it into juice and also made all our raisins from it.
So far this year we have dried a 1/2 gallon of Raisins, made juice from Tamiami and 852 (which makes a sweet green grape juice), and lots of ziplock bags of frozen grape juice for drinks throughout the year. Juice on the left is from the variety 852. There are still other varieites which are not ripe yet. One of our absolute favorites is the Nesbitt, a muscadine. It's our only muscadine, but if you could find a nursery in Florida or Texas that could ship muscadine plants to Hawai'i this would be one of the BIG groups to experiment with. In South Florida, they are removing old citrus orchards (due to the citrus greening disease) and replacing them with vineyards of muscadine varieties. The Nesbitt is the latest to become ripe, usually at the end of August or early September and it makes a beautiful pink sweet juice.
I'll write another blog in the fall, as the grapes begin to lose their leaves, and remind you that we will once again be offering a limited selection of scion wood in February 2025. In our downloadable book that is available on our website www.kawanuifarm.org there is a whole chapter on starting scion wood.
We hope you are also enjoying your yearly harvests and we look forward to meeting more of you in the future. Remember we also post Nancy's Blogs that she writes for the Hawai'i Seed Growers Network www.hawaiiseedgrowersnetwork.com on our website. The HSGN is a hui of long time seed growers who are producing high quality local seed for local needs, in service to Hawaii's Home Gardeners. We are pleased to tell you that the number of people now producing food for their families has greatly increased since 2020 and is showing no signs of slowing! So when we think about food sustainability for Hawai'i we should remember to look to the home producer as one of the most productive members of our local food community!
Mahalo and Aloha to All,
Gerry and Nancy
This is wonderful. It is inspiring and I love seeing the pictures too. I hope my grapes will keep going and produce in future years..
I am so excited to hear about your harvest and look forward to your post in the fall! Can you tell me how you keep the birds from eating too many of your grapes? I know bird netting can be put up, but what kind of structure do you recommend if you use that, or what methods have been successful for you? Thank you for your very important and encouraging work!