We grow ours inside a hoop house, it's actually one of those temporary garage shelters. The hoop house also shelters a pond and it manages to keep the surface of the pond from freezing most winters.

Where did you find your seedless Flame? I have difficulty finding good table grapes locally.

Daren

You'd have to do the hoop house/greenhouse, grow it in a container and protect it or bury the whole vine under snow/leaves (lay it down)...

I found the grape at Canadian tire late April last year. I believe the company was called windmill farms. they have a bad habit of sending non hardy grapes here. apparently were in the same district as southern ontario ( I'm eight hrs east of Winnipeg).

I thought about bulding a mini lean too. its right next to the house foundation. u of minn recommends building a removable trellis so I can lay it down and mulch each year. it works because there is a Niagara grape which I'd like to protect the same.

You should count yourself lucky to have a choice. Our Canadian Tire only carries inedible grapes like Concord or wine grapes. It's the same selection at all the other nurseries we visited.

We were able to pick up 3 actual table grapes this year, Interlaken, Vanessa and Valiant, all from Walmart. Unfortunately, not one of these 3 are famous grapes, the kind of grape that you can find in the grocery store.

Daren

You would be hard pressed to find many "famous" types up here in general. Flame is the only one ive ever seen available.

I will say this. Many if not all commercial varieties are usually bread for disease resistance, shipping ability and shelf life. Many fruits that a home grower grows arent "famous" but taste worlds better.

I have read good things about valiant and it finally produced some flowers/clusters this year. I am hopefully going to get a taste of them this year! Vanessa is supposed to be a good quality table grape but it didnt survive here.

If you can protect it you may want to try "Himrod". It seems to be widely available and is a high quality seedless green table grape according to U of Minn. They make thompson quality raisins as well.

What you can try is contact "pam american nurseries toronto" and as them where they sell the "windmill" products. You may even be able to find out where flame is sold in your area.

anyone else try pushing the limits of grapes and what are your techniques?

By accident I found that the above mentioned method works well. I planted 5 grafted Zweigelt last summer but never built the trellis. The vines that were laying flat on the ground and covered with dirt survived but the ones that weren't covered died. Oddly though, not the entire vines were covered, but the parts that were greened up fine and those vines have survived entirely (and I'm just talking maybe an inch). The ones that weren't covered by dirt at all died completely.

I found by another accident that putting a trash bag full of leaves over blackberries protected them quite well enough. This trash bag method protected better than leaves alone.

Thats how my "niagra survived the winter!

I use leaves and a tarp to protect my bamboo and its always worked except last winter, but I didnt use a tarp at all. So when you say the used of bags seems to work better then just leaves, I agree. You also have to know that we always have a minimum of two feet of snow when the real cold hits, so there will always be a back up as far as insulation goes.

I will say though, that it is quite hard to bend the trunk to the ground, even on my small "himrod", let alone one that is already larger and producing.

Yes, it does seem to be nearly impossible to bend them. A few years ago when my peach trees were new I made cages out of rebar and filled them with leaves, then I put the reflective bubble wrap insulation around the cage. They did remarkably well and I haven't had to do it since. I think I will have to modify this method for my Zweigelt when I get my trellis up. With whatever protection you use, make sure to protect the trunk from mice and voles, otherwise you will have made a very nice winter home with food available. (hard lesson learned!)