Grapes in containers

A friend asked me the other day about finding a grape variety that she could grow on a pergola. It would have to be hardy because she would not be able to take the grape vine off the support each year and bury it. She also wanted a table grape, not the wine grapes that have gotten attention recently being grown in the Stillwater area. I sent her to the U of M extension Web site, but frankly, they don't list that many hardy varieties, and I didn't have a clue which local nursery would have grapes for sale or more than one variety so that my friend could choose.

This made me think again about the funny situation I have gotten into with container gardening. Grapes thrive in containers. I learned this on my own from trial and error (try searching Google on the subject and you can't really find any articles.)

There are a few reasons that I think the grapes thrive in the container environment, one of them being the heat that they receive by sitting on my front concrete steps (I tie them to the iron banister railing for support.) Grapes need lots of heat to ripen. They also need the soil to be somewhat dry so that the fruit does not crack. Pots dry out easily without me even trying too hard.

Then, when the season is done, I just untie the vines and stick them in the garage (I have also buried them in the yard with success, lifting the plants back out at the begining of April.) Pretty easy and I can grow any variety. That means picking the types of grapes to grow based on taste, rather than hardiness.