Anyone grow Muscadines?

You could try the squeeze test. If they are softening they should be getting sweet. Hope this helps.

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I waited this year until they are really soft. If you have to think about whether it’s soft or not then it isn’t. The flavor has been better but I know what you’re saying…I didn’t care for them last year. The flavor is better when they are dead ripe. I haven’t had problems with birds so I don’t know how to advise on that except get a couple of cats like mine!!! :joy::joy::joy:

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I reviewed last years records and BB was ripening at my location the last week in August.

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I will let they hang awhile longer and see if that helps.

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We just tasted our first ever home-grown muscadines and they are delicious! Dixie Red, their second summer since planting. They are the sweetest muscadines I’ve ever tasted - I’m thrilled with them. We also have a Black Beauty plant with a few fruit on it, but they’re not ripe yet.

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I had a few ripe fruit on one of the seedlings today. I think these are Big Red seedlings, but this fruit is bronze. There is a possibility this is from Darlene. My memory is that I saved several hundred seed from Big Red and planted them 4 years ago. I may have tossed in a few Darlene which I recall being ripe at the same time.

The fruit are sweet and have a nice zing lacking in other bronzes I am currently growing. The peel is a bit thicker than I like. I’ll wait until more are ripe and then give another rundown on production, flavor, and other traits.

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Please do!

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Hi Kathryn. What do you do with all the seeded Muscadines? I know this is not quite appropriate for the topic, but I could not find the answer anywhere, so I hope you or anyone here can help. I have a Zinfandel grape vine and it is very big. For most years the grapes are full of liquid and seeds. This year they only have only one or two very small seeds and the skin is very thin. They taste almost like table grapes, crunchy, sweet and a little sour. I try to pick the ripe ones everyday but there are so many. With the yard still full of tulle-covered trees the birds rarely come, even though I only a few pinwheels on this vine. I don’t know how to make wine. It sounds so complicated. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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I’m not an experienced person with this myself. I had what I thought was a lot of grapes last year but this year my oldest vines are 4 years old and honestly I’m a bit overwhelmed with the amount of fruit. Last year I made a bunch of jelly and gave fruit away like crazy. This year I’m just getting started and have to go pick when I finish writing this. We have ordered a wine making kit and have been researching and yeah, it sounds complicated, confusing, complex but we are going to jump in and give it a try. I also have just received a fruit press that I ordered and I’m going to juice a bunch and put in the freezer. Make jelly, etc. some people make juice to drink and can or freeze it. I have a bit of advantage in that lots of these muscadines are fresh eating grapes and lots of people will buy them also. So I might even sell some in local farmers market. Well, I gotta go picking…
:laughing:

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Would it be possible for you to let me know which fruit press and wine making kit you ordered? There are so many different brands. Thanks a lot for your help.

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These are what we ordered. I got the press in yesterday and it’s very heavy duty and you have to assemble it. Also they only include two press blocks with the press and you will have to either order more or cut some from 2x4’s, etc in order to use it. The wine kit is due to arrive this week.
I ordered the 4.75 gallon press but you can choose the size you want

They also have a smaller wine kit also

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Picked 5 gallons of bronze today and 4 gallons of red. Have more than that in the freezer. Wine making here we come… :crazy_face:

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Nice looking muscadines. I hope you picked early in the day before the temps got hot.

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I was sweating before I finished!!! You know, muscadines are easy to grow but they are not a lot of fun to harvest in August in the South!!!

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Cowart in this pic.

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@k8tpayaso
Katie! These grapes are so beautiful! We ended up getting several dozen grapes. That’s it. And . . . the squirrels or birds snuck in and stole most of them. But the ones I got to taste were very good. Not very big, however. Maybe because the vines were planted just last spring? I am going to order more from Isons. Maybe I can outproduce the squirrel demand. - - - So disappointing.
We have 3 pecan trees that produce fairly well - but they are picked clean by the animals and we have never gotten a decent nut.
:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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O M G.
Those are amazing. Like Bill (aka @Auburn ) said, it’s hard to believe they are Muscadines.

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OH MY is growing but not as fast as I had hoped.


Putting on a few limbs for next years fruit.

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The Zinfandel grapes turned out not juicy this year so I don’t think we can make wine out of them. We added a few more small grape vines, and I don’t know which one pollinated them this time. There are at least two types of grape on the Zinfandel vine. I will dry the bigger fruits, and combine the small ones with other fruits to make jam after removing the seeds. They add the very nice flavor and tangy taste to the mix.
Deseeding the grapes takes a lot of time so we will try juicing and maybe wine making next year. Please let us know how you wine turns out later, and thanks again for your help.

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I’m about to add the yeast to the first batch…

:flushed::flushed::flushed::flushed::flushed:

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