Muscadines!

  Yesterday while Mark and I were out for our evening hike, we noticed that the Muscadine Grapes needed picking.  This is the first year of producing for these particular vines so it was cause for a bit of excitement!  The arbor, while not loaded, was showing some promise after several years growth.  Now came the problem of picking the black blobs of deliciousness.  When building the arbor, not a lot of thought was put into this stage of the game.  While we knew we wanted a "walkthrough" arbor, our intentions are not boding well now.  The grapes are just out of reach!  Mark thought the stepladder would be of some help but other than his standing on the first step, the thing proved useless.  I upturned a box and proceeded to use it as a step-stool.  Then there was the brilliance of putting some support wire on top of the arbor.  This, my friends, has proven to be a royal pain!  The six inch square openings do allow for the hands to reach up through the vines but then once filled with a cluster of grapes, the hand becomes a bit wedged.  The twisting and turning to get the fistful of grapes through the wire (and vines) causes about half of the grapes to fall to the ground.  After fighting this method of picking for a while, I gave up and decided on a different approach.  While Mark was still going for the old grab and turn method, I started picking up the grapes that he dropped on the ground.  Actually, I was filling my bowl a whole lot faster than when I was actually pulling the things from the vine!  It was sort of like picking up pecans or perhaps some odd Easter egg hunt where the eggs were grapes and, of course, it was fall not spring. (So I guess the Easter egg hunt thing was a poor analogy.)

  All in all, we managed to pick a gallon and a half of the things before darkness made the task difficult.  In the morning, the chore will continue until we glean the arbor of its grapes.  Wild Muscadines can be easily cultivated and grown in the garden.  They will cover most any arbor which provides nesting places for birds which, in turn, help with garden pests.  The vines grow quickly and will usually produce within the second year.  Ours met several obstacles during those first two years and did not produce well until this, their third year.  These grapes are not of the seedless variety so one must take care to "spit" the seeds.  I plan on making some fine grape jelly to go with early morning biscuits!  There is just nothing better!