Grape Flowers

Grape flowers are not unattractive looked at up close, but they are not exactly spectacular. Sadly, neither is the fruit that this particular grape produces, although we were assured when we bought the orchard that this rampant grape vine that had climbed up into the paulownia gave wonderfully sweet and delicious red grapes. Unfortunately the payoff with muscat grapes is that they are small, squishy and full of seeds. Give me a nice medium sized Australian sultana grape any day, seedless and firm fleshed that goes 'pop!' in the mouth.

On the other hand, this grape vine has given me many young leaves which I have preserved in brine, ready to make dolmades, and one day we hope to convince it to come out of the paulownia and across our pergola to enhance our barbecue and picnic area. And one of our readers very kindly sent instructions for making grape jelly and some ideas for using it, so maybe the grapes won't just be bird food this year.

Susan