The Tyrrany of the Garden...Produce

Above is a photo of what is lurking in my fridge.  See those two large glass bowls and the smaller metal one?  They are full of the fruit of the Isom muscadine vine.  What you do not see is the gallon zipper bag full of them in the crisper too. I tend to anthropomorphize my garden and I know that my garden does not care that I am very busy at the start of the semester. It does not note that I have sandwiched two trips with 4 days in between and have to process almost 4 bushels of peaches that all came ripe early and at pretty much the same time.  It does not care that I have guests and forget to get to the zucchini before it grows into a baseball bat.  The garden moves on without me, though it cannot go too long without my labor.

So what am I going to do with all these muskies?  I still have jam from last year, so this year I am experimenting: muscadine juice concentrate, muscadine sorbet and frozen yogurt, muscadine syrup for pancakes and waffles.  And if any of these concoctions come out well, I will post the results on the blog.

Oh, by way, I am not yet half way through muscadine harvest season.  Wish I liked muscadine wine.

[FYI, unlike other grapes, muscadines, native to the southern US, are hardy, sturdy and grow with little to no trouble, but you do have to prune them.  For example, my neighbors driveway is next to the fence they are on.  One week, he left his car, which has a roof rack, parked for 4 or 5 days and...wait for it... the vines twined around his roof rack and he had to cut them off!  The vine that ate the car!].

Happy gardening!