Ken Schmidt

Steve Thorn wrote:I know the feeling Ken, I've had raccoons get a lot of my fruit before.

One thing that I've noticed that has helped keep raccoons and squirrels from cleaning off all the fruit, (when you aren't able to just grow more like you mentioned), I've noticed that if I can pick the fruit as it gets ripe, it really seems to help. When I've left some of the fruit to hang ripe for a few days, I've gone out to harvest it, only to find it all suddenly has disappeared.  If I can stay up on the harvest, it seems like I don't have as many issues with the little thieves.

Thanks; that's a good strategy, Steve. This being my first year with actual grapes, it seemed awfully early to harvest them--they were still pretty small, and I had read it was more like Sept when grapes are ripe. So I thought I had much more time before even considering harvest. After raid part 1, I tried one or two of the remaining ones; they still seemed a bit tart, so again, I didn't think they were ready yet. Then the rest went a day or two later. I'll have to get a better feel for when grapes ripen in KC...
I will probably try some coyote urine, and/or a couple courses of electric wire next year. On the plus side, I guess the vines themselves will continue to get stronger each year...

Kerry Rodgers wrote:

Ken Schmidt wrote: then a raccoon tore the mesh all to bits and ate my grapes--all of them

Every year, all my grapes disappear from the vines all at once.  I've been watching, trying to spot, and I think I have narrowed it down to the squirrels.  Any ideas for that varmit?  Do people net or bag just the fruit clusters?

That's how mine went. You may consider raccoons; I thought squirrels originally, but from the amount of daylillies completely tramped down below the vines, as well as seeing a raccoon on my deck the next night for the first time here in 25 years, I'm going with raccoon(s). I also read that they LOVE grapes.

I had my first vine set grapes this year. I even had a fine mesh 'shield' to keep the japanese beetles from devouring the leaves like they did last year. They were forming beautifully, then a raccoon tore the mesh all to bits and ate my grapes--all of them (I know it was a raccoon, because my dog chased him onto the roof one night when I was letting him out. I'm in suburbia, and this was the first I've seen of the little bandits. Has anybody had any successful ways of protecting their grapes from raccoons? Like I said, I'm in suburbia, so 'grow more' isn't an option. They're on the thin side yard between me and the neighbor's house, and really seem to do well in that spot. Lots of various other plants growing beneath/around them.
Thanks!

So, I guess I'm a bit late to the party. Ken here; I live in Olathe.
This season will be my first full foray into Permaculture; It's just my suburban yard (at least for now), but I'm looking forward to it. I've been watching videos and reading a couple of books so far. I'll be putting in a number of dwarf fruit trees in about a month, with guilds to build out from there.
I saw this forum and wanted to hop on, get in the mix, and say hello.
I'll read through the preceding pages before I ask any questions...