CELEBRATING OUR RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

Every fall we do a delicate dance about when to harvest the grapes. We want to get to them before the starlings do, but we would like for them to stay on the vine until as long as possible for the sweetness to develop. Everything timewise has been late this year, and it was too hard to wait until the first frost which finally came this morning.

The red grapes are a variety called Canadace. This is a small champagne grape and it is wonderfully sweet when fully ripe. I like the glow they display when the sun shines through them.

The "white" grape is similiar. A champagne type, seedless, and also sugary sweet. It too is quite small compared to the giant tasteless grapes the markets fly in from South America, but it is bursting with flavor.

Our blue grape is the traditional American favorite, the Concord. Plump and savory, it always gets rendered for the juice which we like to have on hand for a base for dinner beveraages and occasionally for use in communion when traveling or camping. The seeds make this a challenge to eat (unless a spit cup is in hand) so canning is our method of extending the concords.

The harvest often fills up the yard cart a couple of times. Here is some of the yield on the way to the house. Looks like a few asian pears hitched a ride too. Most of the grapes went home with our harvesters (daughter and granddaughters) this year and were shared with friends and even showed up at a church potluck, so we feel the vintage of '08 went to good causes. Maybe you'll be around for '09?