Old Folsom Vineyard welcomes community with grape harvest

RAPID CITY, S.D. — Summer is coming to and end, which has farmers, backyard gardeners, and other growers all looking toward their harvests.

The Old Folsom Vineyard just outside of Rapid City has started picking its Marquette grapes.

Members of the community were welcome to come out and help while also getting a free lunch after harvesting Saturday, which ran from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This year, the harvest time has actually been moved up due to the warmer temperatures in the area. That also affected the yield of the grapes.

“The vines shut down at about 95 degrees, and so we had a lot of days over 95 degrees this year, so they kind of go into a self preservation mode, respiration, I won’t bore you with all the technical aspect of it, but at the end of the day, it stunts the vine,” said Old Folsom Vineyard Owner Mike Gould.

For the last 14 years, the vineyard has been involving community members in the harvest process that just want to come out and enjoy a day in the outdoors.

Gould says that harvesting has turned into a fun family experience over the years and those that participate look forward to it every year.

“We enjoy it. It’s kind of a celebration,” said Gould. “As you can see, there’s a lot of people here, everybody having fun, listening to music, and we’ll break off at about 1:00 o’clock and quit for the day and everybody will have wine. And today on the menu we have chili, so it’s a little cool. We figure that be operable.”

Mike and the crew plan on harvesting through the weekend.