Grapes So Far Unmolested (August 30, 2012)

It's almost September. We haven't lost a single grape yet. So far my strategy has worked. In past years I've usually protected the grapes in the back yard in response to the first depredations of the season, when the grapes have taken on color but are still far from ripe. This year, I determined to net the grapes and turn on the electric fence that surrounds them before the grapes started to turn purple, and the idea seems to have worked. My aim was to make the grapes inaccessible before they became attractive to raccoons etc. Still about six weeks to harvest, if we harvest on a typical date (usually around the second week of October). The summer has been so cool, though, that harvest may be later than usual. We'll see.