October 3, 2020

Fall Foraging: Muscadines

It appears that my October 1st post never registered with the feed readers. You can see what it was and what happened here, "How To Make a Comfrey Salve." The coupon is good through Sunday. 

I was thrilled to find muscadines this year!


Muscadines are the South's wild grapes, but they aren't consistent producers from year to year. So a good season is always exciting.

We have two types.

The greenish bronze ones are scuppernongs.

Some of them are fairly easy to find and pick.

Scuppernongs hanging close enough to pick from the ground.

Others, such as in the first photo, are windfall finds.

Muscadines way up there.

Zooming in.

The vine is loaded with them, all too far to reach.

I have several places that I check daily and gather what I can. Then I weigh them, bag them, and put them in the freezer.

First day's foraging harvest.

Muscadine jelly is my favorite, so I'm looking forward to that. Anyone else forage wild grapes?

Fall Foraging: Muscadines © October 2020

30 comments:

Nancy In Boise said...

I have seen wild Oregon grapes which are much smaller. What's the flavor like? That's cool that you can snag some where you can reach them

Leigh said...

Unfortunately, not too many are within reaching distance. Most of them vine their way up to the treetops. They aren't what I'd call a table grape; the flavor is tart but grape-like, but unique too. I don't know what to compare it too, but it does make the very best grape jelly. :)

Pioneer Woman at Heart said...

My wild grape vines never produced anything this year. You are lucky. I tried to read the comfrey salve post but it said not there, but will try again. Thanks for the link.

Rosalea said...

Those vines sure grow high, and the fruit is huge! At our previous home, we'd bike along the old railway trail and pick wild grapes that grew along it. They made lovely jelly, and juice.

Cockeyed Jo said...

I have muscadines planted in my orchard so I don't have to go foraging for them anymore. Unfortunately, they were again a "eh" producer again this year though the vines were robust. In fact, both of my grapes were "eh" producers this year. I may need to add some potassium and peat moss to their compost in the spring.

Leigh said...

Kristina, wild grapes seem to be very unpredictable from year to year. I guess that's what makes a good year exciting. :)

The salve post was accidentally published before it was ready. But reverting it to draft and later changing the post title didn't "fool" the feed readers.

Rosalea, I think these are the largest muscadines I've ever seen. I've never gotten enough for juice, but that's a good idea.

Jo, our plan is to eventually make pergolas to shade the southwestern bedroom windows and grow muscadines on them. I figure they're good enough to wait on, even if they don't produce every year. :)

Seeking Serenity said...

LoL what?? Those names sound like something made up hahaha
Never heard of them or seen them before :D

Kathy said...

The fence between my rental and the neighbor (rental) has purple and white grapes. Have no idea of variety. None of the renters pick them (they actually originate on neighbor property but grow over the fence). They make wonderful juice and jelly, but not good to eat. When ripe, the white ones are sort of a translucent pale green/yellow and the purple ones are pretty dark. Our neighborhood doesn't seem to have a lot of birds (city, heavy traffic, cats) so not much eats the grapes either. That's my weekend task is to pick and process grapes. I hate to see free food go to waste!

Mama Pea said...

I don't think I've ever heard of wild grapes of any kind growing around here. Matter of fact, folks who have tried to grow domestic grapes struggle a little because of winter kill. Those muscadines of yours are a nice, large size. How frustrating it must be, though, to see all of them way up so high as to be inaccessible! Bad Mother Nature!

GiantsDanceFarm said...

Here in Michigan, particularly where we live in Northern Michigan grapes grow REALLY well. In fact we have a booming wine industry.

The most prolific wild grape, those where the seeds are distributed by the birds, tend to be a concord type which make fantastic jelly. But it’s been a number of years since I’ve made any as my hubby and I prefer jams, especially blueberry - which also grows wild like crazy here - And stone fruits which are cultivated. Northern Michigan is the largest producer of tart cherries in the US if not the world.

You can walk over to almost any fence line here where birds land and you’ll find wild grapes. I’m more inclined to ignore the grapes themselves and pick the grape leaves for pickling. One of the places i commonly hit is actually at a nearby picnic stop park where there’s a small waterfall.

My hubby has been saying he wants to plant table grapes here but he’s never gotten around to it. There was an old trellis here when we moved here but no viable grape vines. We’re having a heck of a time with a black bear visiting our fruit trees and stripping the apple trees and hazelnut bushes - he seems to not like the peaches, pears and older style apples which were here when we bought the place, but he LOVES the honey crisp apples! He’s destroyed every fence/barrier we’ve put up. We actually just completely removed the hazelnuts a few weeks ago in the hope that it will discourage him form spending as much time here.

Leigh said...

Serenity, they're great names, aren't they? :)

Kathy, good for you for picking them! I agree about not letting anything go to waste.

Mama Pea, our neighbor's mother trained muscadines to grow on her chain link fence. The house is now a rental, but neither the occupant nor the daughter pick them. So sad to see them go to waste. I'm hoping to grow some on a couple of pergolas which will eventually frame our bedroom windows. A little shade plus accessible wild grapes!

GiantsDanceFarm, I didn't realize that about Michigan, interesting! I usually make jam too (because it's easier) but I make the exception for muscadine and blackberry jelly.

That's interesting about the bear and his apple preferences. Anybody who's eaten a honey crisp apple would agree! It's a shame to remove the hazelnuts, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I hope it works!

Rain said...

That's pretty neat Leigh! I wish I could forage wild grapes, but there aren't any around here that I've found yet!

Toirdhealbheach Beucail said...

Leigh, interesting historical fact: The Romans also grew their vines up into trees and sent people up at the end of the year to harvest them.

Ed said...

Never any wild grapes but we did pick a good crop of wild blackberries this year.

Leigh said...

Thanks Rain! I have no idea how far north wild grapes grow. But who knows, you have blueberries, so you may have other goodies as well. :)

TB, that is interesting. I wouldn't mind sending someone up into our trees to harvest ours. Dan and I decided our ladders aren't long enough for us to attempt. :)

Ed, blackberries are another treat, IMO. Also for jelly!

wyomingheart said...

Awesome harvest for you this year! Muscadine grapes were very prevalent in Florida, and we had a nice variety that we grew on a long extended trellis. They do make excellent jams and jellies! We used the root stock and grafted some other varieties of grapes, which never produced as well as the original plant, but we don’t know what will happen if we never try...right? ... lol! I’m happy for you to have some toast topper in the coming months! Have a great week ahead!

Leigh said...

Wyomingheart, are you too far north now for muscadines? I know there are other kinds of wild grapes, but I don't know what they are. Interesting about the grafting experiment. I've seen muscadine plants for sale locally, but have also thought about possibly rooting cuttings or transplanting. It would be nice to have the harvest where we can reach it. lol

1st Man said...

None that I know of on the property but I did buy a muscadine variety a couple years ago at the end of season store clearance and I've been taking care of it (it even produced a few grapes while in its container). We want to plant it in the ground but I go back and forth on figuring out a trellis situation. Always seems they can just produce growing up a tree but I'm sure if I plant it on purpose in a fancy bed with a really cool trellis I won't get any, ha. They are good though. I'm willing to try if I can figure out the best way to do it.

Open Source Enterprises said...

I have beautiful muscadine vines in my back hedgerow, we made a cobbler this year with them.the kids loved it tasted very tart like a grape soda.

Kelly said...

I don't think I ever realized that scuppernongs and muscadines were the same thing, or are you just saying both are wild grapes? I have vague memories of growing scuppernongs in our yard when I was a little girl. (or maybe it was the other!)

Leigh said...

1st Man, if you grow them up a tree, you'd better have a very tall ladder! Or a short tree. :o . They do reach for the sun. I'm planning to grow some on pergolas to shade our sunset facing windows in summer. They're worth it however you can manage. :)

Open Source Enterprises, I've never heard of muscadine cobbler. Sounds very good!

Kelly, I'd call them both wild grapes, but around here, they're the only kind that grow so nobody calls them grapes. Folks do cultivate them because they are so good for jelly and wine.

Nancy In Boise said...

I actually just saw these a day or 2 ago on Somewhere South, Vivian Howard's newer series! Have you seen her shows? I love her, she's seems pretty inventive.

Leigh said...

Nancy, I've never heard of her, but she sounds very interesting. I'll have to look her up. Are her shows on the internet?

Nancy In Boise said...

On PBS she had the chef's life that was on for five or six years I think. Her most recent was somewhere South and I think you can find some of her snippets on Facebook. She has a lot of cookbooks to. She and her husband grew up in the Carolinas and worked in New York and high end restaurants and then she moved back home and really got in on the early farm to table movement. I love her!

Nancy In Boise said...

If you have access to a local PBS channel they probably have some of her shows since I've seen two different episodes here in the last week

Leigh said...

Thanks Nancy! I'd be interested too. We don't have a television service, so maybe I can find her somewhere on the internet.

Practical Parsimony said...

I had a scuppernong arbor that was 9'x18' and only about 5 feet high, so i was easy to pick them. One guy and his sister brought ladders and bushel baskets to get all the ones reached from the top. This was in my yard in the first subdivision ever in my town, so old vines. Also, in the yard were what elderly men called "old-fashioned wild grapes." No other name, no matter who I asked. I went to the Bankhead Forest and got many muscadine and lots of thorns, so I never did that again. A guy allowed me to glean from his muscadines that he sold commercially in his business. I love muscadine jam.

Leigh said...

Practical Parsimony, I love the description of your arbor. Sounds like it worked well and you got a lot! Now I'm wondering what the old-fashioned wild grapes were. I think muscadines are all we've got here.

Flynn said...

oh, yeah, this post reminded me that we used to get muscadine grapes at our old house. I loved making grape jelly out of them. But then when we got goats, they really love grapevines! lol. So that was the end of our muscadines. Where we live now is too cold, I think. I tried planting some concord vines, but they didn't take, so I think I need to work on my location and try again next year.

Enjoy your grape jelly!

Leigh said...

Flynn, yup, goats will wipe out grape vines! lol. I'm a big fan of giving "fails" a second and third try. Like you say, sometimes it's the location, or sometimes it's just the weather. Hopefully, you'll have success next year!