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redsun9

Are These All Good Old Slip-Skin Grapes?

Concord
Niagara
Fredonia
Catawba

It appears to me they are old, popular (still?), slip-skin grapes? Are they good as table grapes for fresh eating?

Or I should try some of the new varieties? Such as Canadice, Hope, Gratitude, Faith, etc?

Comments (4)

  • clarkinks
    9 years ago

    I like concord, Niagara, and catawba for juice and fresh eating but when you want true table grapes for fresh eating red canadice is the best we grow here. The skin is thin on our canadice whereas the skins on the other 3 I mentioned are like leather. I can't tell you about the others because I don't grow those.

  • jtburton
    9 years ago

    Not sure about Fredonia but the rest are slip skin, including Canadice. I have a couple of Canadice vines and their skin is edible. They have a good flavor.

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I'm in the process of setting up my grape area. The eaters are pretty picky. I do not want to plant something, then have to re-plant them again in a few years. This is mainly for fresh eating. I may make some grape juice if we have some surplus.

  • clarkinks
    9 years ago

    RedSun I grow seedless concord for juice which are not seedless in zone 5 but produce excellent juice and in large quantity. The down side is they produce a lot of foliage because they are extremely vigorous so they require a lot of pruning. The grapes do not all ripen at the same time so individual picking is the way to go and very time consuming. They are very disease resistant and long lived. The leaves also add some protection from sunburn. In Kansas they produce a big first crop and a small second crop which we just finished picking. They are the only grapes I have grown or have heard of that produce two crops. That little extra vigor , extra crop, extra tolerance of extreme weather all made them our main juice grape. You must pick them dead ripe or they are not good. Standard concords are productive and have an excellent flavor as well and we grow them and enjoy them very much. The flavor of standard concords is the best for juice of all varieties in my opinion. They are my second favorite overall. Catawba and Niagara are good grapes and have a nice flavor but they are not the juice producers in my area and we just consider them a bonus when we get a dozen or so bunches of those. Red Canadice are very susceptible to black rot in our area so be prepared to use a fungicide during the critical times which are pre-bloom, post bloom, and again as fruit start to set. They are the variety we eat fresh and are very sweet and produce large quantities. The vine is not particularly vigorous and we get some die back every year from the cold weather but in the spring they come out of it and produce an excellent crop.

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