Too Late For Gooseberries, But...

I went out today to look at the gooseberries.  I'm too late - they're all gone.  It is the season for wild grapes, though.  They're mighty pretty right now.  I got a whole bunch of them that are nice and ripe - more than a quart once I've got the good ones picked - in about 10 minutes from one small group of vines.  There's a lot more of them out there.

I haven't done anything with wild grapes before.  The grandkids were fascinated - they tried them out several times, followed by much spitting to get the sour things out of their mouths. 

I am going to look for some more out there and look into making some wild grape jam.  And some wild grape liqueur.  I'm not going to try wine - that looks like a lot of work.

While I was picking grapes I discovered that I have a wild plum tree in the back yard.  At first I thought that it was crabapple, but the fruits were kind of squishy and plum-looking.  Hubby tasted one.  It was pretty astringent, but he said it tasted pretty plum-like.  I'm not going to get too excited about it - it looks like the grapevine has pretty much killed the wild plum tree.  It's singing its swan song this year, I think. 

I thought that we could collect some pits to try to grow some more wild plum trees, but hubby thinks it would be better to get some non-wild plum trees.  He's probably right about this. 



FT