"Strangest".... That's pretty funny, as I am the only one in my entire neighborhood that grows *ANY* fruit at all.... The neighbors look at me like I am some sort of anachronism for growing a little garden and some fruit trees.... But... The "Strangest" of all the common stuff I have is a cider pear, a Citation Rootstock peach/plum that had the graft die, an American Purple plum seedling, and a roadside dug-up seedling peach. My Purple and black tomatoes probably classify as what folks around here think is weirdest... They look and say "But... It's rotten!" On the sugar cane thing - if you poke around and ask the old timers at the feed stores - you will find that most farm families in the Deep South used to raise their own sugar cane for sweetening things.... As Jolji said - you bury them over the winter, then dig them up and plant them shallow after Easter... This year, I want a Jujube and a couple filberts... In years past - people expressed wonderment at my Vanilla orchids... Thanks

I'm coming to this conversation a few years late. The story of my life, LOL! Anyway, I live in the heart of Muscadine country, SE Georgia and have twelve vines in all. Three of them, Ison, Supreme, and Pam are beginning their third year of production. (They have bloom buds and will be blooming soon that is.) Two other varieties and a second Ison, will enter their first year of production this year. (Yes, I liked Ison enough to get a second vine.) The reputation of the Ison muscadine is that it's not very cold tolerant in comparison to some others. However it is one of the earliest black varieties to bare fruit, so if you succeed at taking measures to protect it in a colder climate, you have a better chance of actually getting fruits with Ison than you would with say Late Fry which has better cold tolerance but needs a much longer growing season to ripen fruit. If you like the white muscadines, maybe you should try a brand new one that has just come out called Hall. I don't have this one, but Hall is supposed to be very cold hardy and an early season variety. It's also self fertile like Ison, so you only need one vine. Lane is another new early season self fertile variety that has just come out. The subject of Lane raises another consideration when picking a muscadine, and that's skin qualities. One of the big improvements in muscadines is the skin. The skin of Ison is not as tough or bitter as some of the older varieties. But the skin of the still newer table varieties such as Supreme, Black Beauty, Late Fry, Lane and a few others is crunchy and sweet. So the lady who mentioned her daughter eating the skins, well, if its from one of the newer varieties such as Supreme, I don't blame her. Ison is a great muscadine bred expressly to have a lot of the flavor characteristics of wild muscadines. It's really meant for making jam and yes some wines where you have an especially strong "musky" muscadine flavor. As a result, some folks will tend to prefer the flavor of some of the table varieties that aren't so musky. Most of my vines are on trellises for fruit production. I planted my second Ison to go on a swing arbor. I was impressed with the way Ison has a long lasting two tone red green color phase on it's ripening grapes which I find very attractive. I planted the second vine on the swing arbor for aesthetic reasons on account of that characteristic. Last comment, someone mentioned the red pigment of black muscadines being unstable. Yes, that's true, but the variety Nobel, has the most stable pigmentation and therefor most commercial red muscadine wines will have at least some Nobel grapes in them. If the wine maker is going for a strong musk flavor, they will do about a 70% Ison and 30% Nobel mix. God bless. Marcus

In your area? Where is that? I can tell you a little about the Majesty. In 2012 I contacted the researcher who bred and selected it at FAMU. I also was looking for it and couldn't find it. He said that it had been released to a nursery in Florida, but that place went out of business and no others had stepped up. I stopped by there in February of 2012 and got the 3 vines from him. I think since then some other nurseries have been selling them. One reason they shy away is the fact that it's a female. I have a Supreme that I also bought in 2012. It has yet to reach the trellis wire. It was killed back in 2015 like the rest, but it had done very little before that and hasn't recovered nearly as well as all the other varieties. It has never had more than 5 grapes on it. For me, the Supreme has been less productive, less vigorous, and even less cold hardy than the Majesty. I have an Ison that is possibly my most productive vine. Like others, I had read the Arkansas trials where they panned the Ison for winter damage, lack of vigor, etc. That has not been my experience. The Ison grapes also are good tasting eaten fresh. My best tasting grapes are the Ison and Eudora in the purple and Tara for the bronze ones. I have a couple of Darlenes, but they haven't produced much yet because they're younger than my others, so I'm withholding judgement on the quality of the grapes. The vines are vigorous, but so far not very productive.

I am in zone 7 in the East. I just removed three arbors of grapes. They were more trouble than they were worth. I tried several varieties, but store bought were better grapes to eat. We don't make jelly or jam, but I did make raisins a couple years, but still have several quarts left from last year. This climate just will not produce decent eating grapes. We like the thick skin grapes that you can take a bite out of. These are some of the varieties that I have grown for 10 years or so. Villard Blanc, Jupiter, Neptune, Canadice, Himrod, Reliance, Vanessa, Concord (seedless and seeded) and two varieties of Muscadines. Insects killed the Muscadines (or a combination of drought and cold)Himrod made the best raisins! But, Himrod developed a very poor crop most years. I even tried Flame but they only produced very small grapes. The closest grape to what we like were Canadice. Raisin making was a chore using dehydrators. First, you have to pick over the grapes which takes forever.The grapes would dry at different times so they had to be checked and picked over many times over a 24-36 hour time period. I used different dehydrators so I know the inconsistent drying problem was the moisture content of the grape as well as hot spots in the dehydrators. The one thing I will miss is walking by one of the arbors and grabbing a handful of grapes. But, still there is a lot of spraying to prevent fungal diseases as well as insects, japanese beetles and bees, animals such as foxes and birds. Foxes get the low ones and birds and bees the rest. Also, the climate is too hot and too humid. Oh, did I mention they all seem to get ripe at the same time!