We planted valiant grapes when we first purchased our house a few years back. After a couple of years we started to get a handful of grapes. Then in 2014, we built a trellis for the grapes, and things started to really go well.

This trellis is over 10 ft tall, and since then the vines have taken over the trellis and now grow up the wall.

The first year with the trellis we harvested 3kg (6.8 lbs) of grapes. We thought that was a lot.

Then in 2015 we harvested 5kg (11 lbs), almost double!

This year… perhaps it was the extra rains, perhaps it was just more established plants, or maybe it was our expert care (more negligence really), but this year, we harvested 11.8 kg (26 lbs) of grapes!When we went out to start harvesting we pulled back the front layer of leaves to see the vines covered with clusters of grapes. We had to set aside the bowls we had taken to get a box.

Anyway, this will be a ridiculous amount of work to process. We will have to rethink our to deal with this many grapes for next year. However, I don’t expect it to quadruple the yield.

Update: Naomi was able to make about 22 L of grape juice, and and around 6.5 L of grape jelly!