joflasher | The hedge doth guard a wonderous gift, prized and fair

I came home from the farm on Friday to find the Boy out attacking the mutant thorn bush. He had quite a bit of it nipped back. I managed to get past it and started exploring.

Now all along our back yard are wild grape vines. We called them fox grapes growing up. They are edible but very small and tart and are mostly seed. Past the mutant bush, you can see a virtual sea of grape vines and I just assumed they were more fox grapes. Imagine my surprise when I got back there and found grapes the size of quarters and bigger. Someone planted domestic grapes and then abandoned them. And they thrived! Sure, the bunches are small (less than a dozen per bunch) but the grapes are immense and there are hundreds of them.

Their arbor is nothing more than a bunch of mostly dead maple trees and it lookes like the deer sleep under the bushes. Part of me wants to build a proper arbor, shore them up, prune and reclaim them. Part of me says leave them be, they made it this long on their dead trees with no pruning and they obviously aren't suffering for the lack. Either way, I'm looking forward to fresh grapes soon. We got enough blueberries off of our bushes this weekend to make kruggen. Maybe wine will be next. I also found our blackberry bushes but they are pretty sour still. I keep forgetting that MA != PA as far as harvest times go.