My favorite jelly!
I started some from cuttings I got from a buddy in NC, about half grew leaves, put them in the garage once the leaves died in the fall, planted them in the spring, they grew leaves and didn't come back. They can't take the cold I was told.
We used to sit with the old folks under the shade from a decades long muscadine arbor and wear them out. Some of them were 50X50 feet. Almost always next to a peanut or soybean field.
We had a tame grape arbor, 10x100 ft, some awesome grapes. Right by a bunch of species of apple trees, summer to winter.
Maybe there's hope then. We covered them in straw in the fall
I looooooooooooove muscadine jelly. I'm going to try to make some this weekend myself. They don't grow here in the mountains naturally, but they'll grow if you plant them. A -0 spell will knock them back pretty good, but they usually come back in a year or two.
There are some cultivars that are hardier than others. I tried transplanting some wild ones from my place in SC here, and they didn't survive -10. I have a couple I bought from Ison's that are kicking after several years.
These came from @ Fayetteville NC. It was pretty cool scoring the bottom of the vine, soaking, then planting it and watching it leaf out.
Fayetteville is deep south climate. The closest to me that I have seen wild muscadines growing is Polk Co, NC, in the southern edge of the Blue Ridge mountains. I bet those are hardier than the ones from the flatlands.
These were the tan when ripe ones, said they were intermediate...
I was referring to wild muscadines as compared to domestic muscadines.
I think the wild ones are the best, but there are a couple domestic strains you can't hardly tell apart from them. I think the ones that are bred to be bigger don't have as much flavor as the smaller ones the same size as the wild ones.
Had both, don't grow naturally up here.
Do you have fox grapes up there, or just those peas-sized possum grapes? We have both, but you don't see the fox grapes as much as we used to.
