I am new to this sight, but am anxiously looking forward to learning how to handle the grape vines at my daughters home that was just purchased. This is an older property here in central Illinois and I am thinking that the grape vines are almost as old as the house - 25 to 30 ish. We want to prune the vines at the proper time and harvest the grapes that are currently on the vines. There are many grapes right now, but they are med to small. The taste is pretty good though. When should we harvest these grapes and then when should we prune to improve the harvest next year? Thank you so much for your help.
I assume that your grapes are some Concord type. Anyway, like all grapes, harvest them when they are sweet enough to taste good. The main pruning should be done during the winter, before the sap starts to run in the spring. You should pick a training system and then stick to it, although it may take a couple of years to transition to whatever system you select. There's lots of pruning info on the Web.
Thank you for the info. Currently, the vines are filled with grapes although they are not very large - about the size of a garbonzo bean, but the taste is sweet already. Should I go ahead and pick the grapes now (we are in central Illinois)? I will wait to prune later in November - should be after the frost at that time.
If the grapes taste good enough, you can pick them now; but they will get sweeter if you wait. I like to spread the picking out as long as possible, unless we need a lot of grapes for jam or jelly. They contain more pectin when they are not fully ripe, but the pectin content is generally not very high.
