In article ,
"David E. Ross" wrote:

On 7/7/2007 6:52 PM, Billy Rose wrote:
In article ,
"David E. Ross" wrote:

My yard is completely fenced and walled. Raccoons still steal my entire
grape crop (two vines).

An idea how many pounds of table grapes that is? If it was wine grapes,
it would be about 80 pounds (.1 barrels).

One vine was 'Perlette', which had about 20 bunches around 5 pounds
each. That's about 100 pounds. The other was 'Black Monukka', about 15
bunches around 3 pounds each. That's another 75 pounds.

The interesting thing about this is that every little stem remained on
the vines. When I eat grapes and pick them off the bunch, I often get
the little stem attached to the grape, which I then have to remove. The
raccoons very cleanly removed each grape without the little stems.

This year, the raccoons (and I) will go hungry. The hill where my grape
vines grew is being repaired. It slipped in the heavy rains of January
2005. All vegitation on the hill had to be removed. My garden is a
mess and will require major work to fix the damage, not from the hill
sliding but from the construction work.

Sorry to hear about your hill slide. I don't know how you were growing
your grapes but I would recommend an arbor. Typically, with grapes you
let the vine vegetate the first three to four years, picking off any
fruit that tries to set. This puts all the energy into growth. Arrange
table and chairs under the arbor and you have a wonderful spot to
entertain and it gets the fruit up out of the way of the raccoons, cute
lil' fellers that they be.

You may want to throw them an ocassional bone. Having wild life around
you is becoming rarer and rarer as the housing tracts go up.

Good luck:-)
--
Billy
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/