Jocular reference was made to ‘The Grapes Of Wrath’ on our our backward version on the way to Oklahoma several years ago. We happened to drive through Salinas, where author John Steinbeck was from, and Bakersfield near Weedpatch, where the migration from Oklahoma in the story ended. From there, we literally drove the same route from Oklahoma, but in reverse.
I never read ‘The Grapes Of Wrath’.
I do enjoy growing the sort of grape vines that some of us grow in our home gardens for fruit that can be eaten fresh. (I loath wine grapes and vineyards, but that is another topic for later.) There happens to be a nice big unidentified grapevine at work that needed major pruning last winter. It was a sloppy and formerly unpruned mess, with rampant long canes strewn about.
Some of these canes developed roots where they had been laying on the ground long enough to do so. The process is simply and conveniently known as ‘layering’. It is actually a technique for propagation that is sometimes done intentionally to plants that are not doing it naturally, (Again, that is another topic for later.) After giving a few rooted canes away, there were a few extra.
Since last winter, seven copies of the original grapevine are still here! I really do not know what to do with them. I could give them to neighbors before the end of this winter, but would then worry about them not getting the annual pruning they need, and overwhelming the landscapes they inhabit, just like the original vine did. Even in their cans, they are already a sloppy mess.
Many surplus plants are accumulating here. Many will go into landscapes as rainy weather starts. However, there are a few that will not be so easy to accommodate.
Tony Tomeo 
I’ve never grown grapes, but I’ve watched a few gardeners try.
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Try?! They sort of grow themselves (in the right climates). For grapevines that I work with, growing is no work at all. Containing them is the work! I do enjoy them so. My colleague down south refers to them as ‘dago wisteria’. However, not all of us grow them.
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I think I’m not in the right climate! There are fox or faux grapes that go crazy, but they’re invasive parasite plants.
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As much as I know about what grapes like here, I do not know much about what the dislike elsewhere. I thin that ours dislike humidity, but there should be cultivars that are related to muscadines that do not mind it so much.
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My grandparents had a lot of grapevines here many years ago but dad got rid of them when they moved here. My grandmother canned a lot of jelly and made grape juice. There was a particular white variety that was amazing and so sweet! A friend of mine in Minnesota, from Jorden, used grape leaves in a particular recipe she cooked. It was amazing!
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Sweet white grapes are enviable. They do not develop such sweetness in mild climates, where warm days cool off at night. Coincidentally, some of the white grape cultivars supposedly make some of the better leaves.
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There are wild grapes around here that are very rampant. Often they bare no fruit until and unless they get their heads into the sun.
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Are they muscadines?
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Not sure, honestly.
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Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:
All of these grapevines have procured homes since this article posted three years ago. Some are quite large now.
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