Verona Thread

[Masbustelo]

I'm curious to see pictures of your Verona's. How are they growing? These are what mine look like today. They seem to be slower growing than my Petite Pearl, which is my only frame of reference. Mine have about ten leaves.

 

[treesaver]

Mine have been in the ground for abouttwo weeks, and have all stirred to life. We have had alot of rain, and cloudy, cool weather, so growing conditions haven't been the best here. Yours are ahead of mine, by quite a bit at this point!

 

[Masbustelo]

I'm thinking they don't like the cool soil temps too much. Mine have really just started to take off in the last ten days.

 

[treesaver]

I about blew a gasket tonight! Went down to see how they were doing this evening, and about six plants had the leaves ate off. Open season on rabbits, got one this evening, more will die! When I mowed, I seen where one had chewed on an apple tree that I had grown from seed, and grafted a gala top on. They signed their death warrant!

 

[Masbustelo]

I made the wire surround that I have on my vines. At the bottom the wire is made closer together than the top so the rabbits and chickens can't get through. It is real light weight. I cut it with tin snips and then bends easily with your fingers. In an hour you could make lots of them.

 

[treesaver]

I went ahead and put grow tubes on everything this evening. Killed two bunnys, but there is always ten times as many as you think, so keeping them out is easier! Masbustelo, did you get one year old or two year old vines? I got one yr old, but had really nice roots. We'll see what the next obstacle is!

 

[Masbustelo]

I think mine were one year old but like you say with very nice roots. I"m in Northern Illinois, but I planted mine the first week of April so they got a head start.

 

[treesaver]

Dell ask me when I wanted mine, and I said the last safe freeze date here is the 20th of May, and he said that he'd send them around the eighth of May. He did, and I mudded them in the next day. I should have put grow tubes on them to start with, but I didn't think the rabbits would bother them, they got a world of green out there to eat!

 

[TonyR]

And as soon as the vines start growing out of the top of the grow tubes those tick carrying good for nothing vermin deer will become a main problem. What I do is tie the vines to the support poles and try not to let anything hang, with mine if it hangs its gone. I trained my Petite Pearl up to the 3rd wire and started the cordons there. The deer seem to leave them alone on the 3rd wire and higher. Good luck

 

[treesaver]

The only thing good about deer or wabbits is that they taste good! Just ask Elmer Fudd!

 

[Masbustelo]

Now two years later, I have some Verona that will be ready to pick soon. Some are at 20 Brix today. I'll weigh the bunches and take some pictures. My Petite Pearl are at 17 Brix, so at least this year the Verona seem to be an earlier ripening variety.

 

[treesaver]

What few verona of the first planting that survived the spraying last year were set back so bad that I only left a few bunches on. My frontenac was ready, so I just picked the few bunches of verona with them. Nice sized grapes, nice color and the brix on mine was 24. Wish I could have had three rows instead of three plants! Several of the sprayed ones started over from the ground, so it'll be a couple years till I have a decent crop.