marechal foch grape vines

[Snadger]

..........Just resurrecting an old thread. When Haza, who posted earlier on the thread left the allotments I inherited his Marechal Foch grape vine. It was in a smallish pot and i decided to plant it just outside my greenhouse and feed it in. It produced maybe 1/2 a dozen bunches of small grapes that year.
Last year it went berzerk and produced roughly thirty or forty bunches of blackcurrant size grapes.
I trained one leader along the ridge of the 8'X6' greenhouse and one leader along the eaves. As they were lashed up with bits of cane and string I decided today to re train the leaders with plenty of support in expectation of a huge crop next year.
I have stretched a length of nylon washing line along the eaves of the greenhouse tied on to the support stays at each end. After gently lowering the vine from its lash up of canes and ties, I have secured it to the washing line at close intervals.
I thought I was doing something wrong last year because the grapes were only the sizee of blackcurrants. Having read up on it, this is the size they are supposed to be.

I have happy memories from last year of eating sweet, tasty bunches of grapes like sweetcorn by nibblling them off the bunch.

Roll on the growing season where I might tie in another leader around the greenhouse door and along the other eave of the greenhouse giving me three main leaders.

[starloc]

When I bought the first one, I thought the tiny grapes were because of the pot and being a young plant , I was quite supprised at first that they never got any larger, until I too looked it up on the internet and found out they were supposed to be tiny.

They do taste fine, if not better than larger ones due to higher sugar content being a wine grape

I thought at first that being a wine grape they may have been more sour, but when I thought logically about it sugar is good for wine so they were not going to be sour

We make them into all sorts of weird things, they go well with morello cherries in a crumble , with jogurt or oats and milk for breakfast , or just stick them in some jelly....stewed they are good as well

This year im going to make grape juice as well....I dont/cant drink so its not going to be wine

[Snadger]

When I bought the first one, I thought the tiny grapes were because of the pot and being a young plant , I was quite supprised at first that they never got any larger, until I too looked it up on the internet and found out they were supposed to be tiny.

They do taste fine, if not better than larger ones due to higher sugar content being a wine grape


I thought at first that being a wine grape they may have been more sour, but when I thought logically about it sugar is good for wine so they were not going to be sour

We make them into all sorts of weird things, they go well with morello cherries in a crumble , with jogurt or oats and milk for breakfast , or just stick them in some jelly....stewed they are good as well

This year im going to make grape juice as well....I dont/cant drink so its not going to be wine

I made some chilli jam with them last year and some ordinary grape jam. Most I ate fresh from the plant though!