Scuppernong grapes. Photo by Amy C Evans, SFA oral historian

7. Scuppernongs
For a gal who grew up with a grape vine in her backyard you’d think I’d know a grape when I see one, but scuppernongs had me scuppered. The size of ping-pong balls, these juicy fruits were nestled into pint-sized boxes lined up on the open shelves of more than a few vendors at the North Carolina Farmers’ Market where a gaggle of garden writers were visiting during the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh. After explaining they were indeed grapes that grow on a vine, the kind lady behind the counter proceeded to demonstrate how to eat this strange (to me) fruit. Hold them right up to your mouth, she said, and lightly squeeze the too-tough-to eat skin to pop the jelly-like insides right into your mouth. Yum! The sweet, grapey flavour is very intense, which is why it’s so popular in the South for pies and jellied condiments. When I returned home, I opened up a copy of the Garden & Gun magazine (no, I’m not making this up) that I’d picked up at the Raleigh airport to discover an entire article on this odd fruit. Here’s some scuppernong trivia from the pages of Garden & Gun:
· Scuppernongs were first found in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River Valley in 1524. The “mother vine” discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 spanned an acre and still produces fruit today.
· Scuppernong wine was a favourite of Thomas Jefferson
· The vines need a sturdy trellis at least 10 feet long by six feet wide

Does anyone know if these grow north of the Mason-Dixon line?

1. The subtitle of Green’s book could be “an ode to fish emulsion” . Hardly a page flips over before he outlines yet another reason for using this organic fertilizer. (My cats have been trying to convince me to turn in the kelp liquid for fish fertilizer for years — maybe this season I’ll take theirs and Doug’s advice).
2. We’ve all read about how to warm up the soil early in the season by laying down black plastic mulch. But only Green’s book tells you the truth: clear plastic heats up the soil faster than black plastic. Who knew?
3. How many methods does it take to deter critters from the garden? Green outlines many common ones, including the electric fencing trick to keep out deer and raccoons. But, here’s his wiley spin: first, attract the animals by wiping the wire with a rag covered in peanut butter.
4. The section on intensive gardening methods includes plenty of useful charts on plant combinations for a succession of crops and season by season crop rotation suggestions.
5. A plant encyclopedia sets out growing advice for a cornucopia of vegetables and herbs. Each plant profile includes “Additional Information” — another phrase for Doug’s homegrown wisdom. One of my favourites is an explanation of tomato types: determinate vs. indeterminate.  I don’t know how many “official” definitions of these types that I’ve read over the years, but each usually dwelt on whether the plant needed staking (indeterminate) or not (determinate). Well, gosh, Doug spells out right away what we all really want to know — that determinate plants produce fruit all at once, so they’re great if you want a batch of tomatoes for canning while the indeterminate ones ripen in sequence, giving us fresh tomatoes throughout the season.

For anyone gardening in a cold climate, Doug Green’s Guide to Canadian Vegetable Gardening spells out Canada’s newest food rules.