Watching the Grapes!

  On our hikes about the hillside, Mark and I always check things like the progress of the palmetto blooms, the size of the figs and if the muscadines on the arbor are making.  So far, things are looking good in those areas.  The lack of a cold winter allowed plants to flourish at an earlier pace this spring.  Yesterday as we wound our way around the marsh edge, we came to the spot where a large, rambling grapevine twines itself around about a half dozen trees.  While this vine is not one of the cultivated vines that are on the arbor, we still check for blooms or tiny grapes.  These are what folks in the Deep South call Possum Grapes or Fox Grapes (depending on the region and who is doing the talking).   Pop always called the clusters of pea-sized grapes possum grapes so the name has stuck with us.  The grapes grow wild in just about any area that is left to its own accord for very long.  They are seeded by birds that eat the grapes and also by runners that take root on their own.  

  This vine has been here as long as Mark and I have lived on the Bayou (making the vine eons old) yet we have never picked a single grape. The critters seem to get to the fruits far before we even realize that they are ripe.  I would love to beat the critters to their game one year and pick a couple of bushels of the grape clusters.  This would be used to make some of the "old time" jelly that I so fondly remember as a kid.  Perhaps it is just my imagination but that possum grape jelly tasted far better than the stuff of today.  There is just something about using wild fruit that makes it a higher quality in my point of view!

  The grapes are indeed full of the small clusters of tiny grapes.  These should be ripening in late summer but since the seasons are askew, I better keep a close watch on the vines.  Unlike our scuppernongs and muscadines, these grapes are mostly seeds.  There is not a lot of pulp nor juice but when prepared properly, a good many jars of jelly can be made from a single bushel of grapes.  Picking them can be a bit tricky, however, as this vine is all the way to the top of a towering pine tree!  I am thankful for the branches that droop down to the ground and wind upon the Sweet Bay trees.  I am not as young as when my brother and I used to clamber up the pecan trees to harvest bushels of the grapes for Mom.  My climbing days are a thing of the past!  Still, I would love to get at least a few grapes before the possums, coons, fox, birds, mice or whatever else munches them all!  Mark and I will have to check daily on the progress of these as well as the others!