Episode 2707

- [Announcer] Muscadines may be best grape you've never tasted. Troy Marden visits with a grower who has an impressive vineyard of this native fruit. As a market gardener, one of Jeff Poppen's goals is to continue producing right up until first frost. We walk the fields of his late summer garden to see all the goodness growing. Stay tuned. Now, here's a fruit that needs no spraying and loves our heat and humidity.

- [Troy] There are a lot of fruits and vegetables that we think of as iconic in the south. And perhaps where fruit is concerned, none is more iconic than the muscadine. We're a little far north in the Nashville area to be really successful, but I want you to meet a gardener who has been very successful for the last 10 years. So David Sprouse has been growing muscadines up here in White's Creek, Tennessee, and you've been pretty successful about it.

- [David] Yeah, it's a struggle, muscadines in our climate here in Tennessee, it can be a challenge.

- But you've found a few varieties that are particularly good here, so tell me what those varieties are.

- Well, there's two varieties of muscadines in terms of color. There's obviously a purple and a white. As far as the purple grapes go, there's a variety called Cowart, which I've had, it seems to have can survive our climate. As far as white varieties, Magnolia is a good one and Carlos is a very good one. You know, there's a third one that's white called a Fry and there's an early Fry, a late Fry. One blooms earlier than the other one. I'm not sure which one that I have, but the Fry, even the books say that it doesn't do well in terms of cold weather, but it has done well for me, from my experience.

- Personally, yeah. So, before we get into the real nuts and bolts of how to grow them, do you have a preference over the red or the white? Have you found something different in them that you really enjoy?

- [David] Yeah, probably my favorite tasting grape is the probably the oldest one, it's called the scuppernong. It was found on the Scuppernong River in North Carolina by some of the early settlers. Its flavor is just outstanding. What people may not realize too is how big these grapes get. You know, some bigger than others, but they can get as big as a quarter. This particular variety is called a Noble. It's a purple grape and it has survived some of our cold winters. I planted it a little bit later than the others, but it's known for its wine making properties. The berries ripen more evenly.

- [Troy] Right.

- [David] Many muscadines they do not ripen evenly. You have to pick the berries individually,

- [Troy] Right.

- [David] Which can be an enormous task.

- So in this section of the garden you've got, these are actual grapes not muscadines, but--

- Right, they're American grapes from the labrusca family. There's two types of American grapes. The muscadines and the labrusca. These would be like your Concord, your Niagara. This happens to be a reliance grape, it's a red grape.

- [Troy] A red grape, yeah. So they're still green right now because they're young but they'll ripen later in the fall. So tell me a little bit about your trellising system and the care and maintenance of both the grapes and the muscadines.

- [David] Well, the American grapes, which would be like your Concord, they generally take a two wire system. There's a specific name for that, I don't remember at the moment, but most of those you use what you call cane pruning.

- Uh huh.

- Which you'll pick a healthy cane from your main

- [Troy] Trunk.

- Trunk there. and you know each year, you get basically four canes, sometimes more, you can run a cane down to the lower wire. A lot of it's done to keep control as well. I mean, I hard prune these pretty vigorously and you can see that they've done really well. You know, there's still space to walk between the rows.

- [Troy] Right, you're trying to get these to come out. You prune back this way but you leave the long canes.

- [David] Yeah, you don't want a long cane just hanging out. You usually train it to the wire.

- [Troy] Grapes and muscadines and these vines are very vigorous vines. So pruning is one of the most important parts of this whole growing process.

- [David] Absolutely. I've never gone a season without pruning every vine.

- [Troy] Otherwise they would just be so overgrown you couldn't walk between the rows. And you've got a good six or eight feet here between this row and the one next to it. They would easily grow together in a season if they were left unpruned.

- Yes, absolutely.

- [Troy] So this is a southern muscadine, our native southern grape. And this is a little bit different beast than you know, the regular grape, just as far as size

- [David] American variety yes.

- [Troy] And all of that. This is on a little bit different kind of trellising system.

- [David] Yes, single wire trellis, from my research, is probably the best for a couple of reasons. One reason, it's easy to maintain and the other reason, if you have equipment like I do, you know with lawnmowers going between the rows, it's easier to maintain in that way. Probably the ultimate trellis for a muscadine is what they call a Geneva trellis, which is a double wire up here and it sits up a little higher. I think the double wires may be four feet apart. You sort of get sort of like a single wire twice, if you want to describe it that way.

- [Troy] Almost like a clothes line effect.

- Yeah, clothes line effect would be a good way to say that. I did have a wire underneath in the beginning, but I tried to do, you know what happens is the top shades out the bottom. You can see it's so vigorous that you can do that in the beginning and you may maximize the fruit, but as the plant ages, the wire underneath just doesn't, you know.

- [Troy] Right, so if we look up under the foliage, I mean I'm lifting up three or four feet of vine here, is this all one season's growth?

- Yes, I prune this what they call spur pruning, what you really do, you can see some buds right here. One, two, three. You prune it back to approximately three buds each cane. And believe it or not, the muscadine is that aggressive.

- [Troy] Right. Sometimes you get lazy after you prune a bunch of em and you'll go through with your shears and get the bulk of it then you'll go back with smaller pruners. But you can see there's, you know, I have a new little extra, but generally, you want to keep this to one runner going down.

- [Troy] Right.

- [David] But as the vine ages, it's a little more of a challenge to keep it to one runner.

- [Troy] Sure, sure. So what time of year will these ripen?

- [David] Well, believe it or not, muscadines, as other grapes, some ripen early some ripen mid season. I would say generally muscadines are more of a fall.

- A fall grape.

- Yes.

- That's kind of the way I think of them.

- I have them you know even ripen at frost.

- Right. And some of them a little earlier. Probably late August is when you start to see them and then September.

- [Troy] Through September and then to early October.

- [David] Exactly and they're actually two types of muscadines. I mean, I'm from the Carolinas. You know, some people say well they're scuppernongs, some people say well they're muscadines. The scuppernong actually refers to the white, the earliest white variety.

- [Troy] Yeah, it is an actual variety.

- [David] It's an actual variety but many of the white varieties in general, are referred to as scuppernongs and the purple ones as muscadines. But they're all muscadines.

- [Troy] Sure. So this is a brand new plant.

- [David] Yeah, just planted this spring.

- [Troy] Just planted this spring. And you know, again here, just to show how much they grow, a brand new little cane and then you've already got a good 12 or 14 inches of new growth just off of this. Even longer up here.

- What you want to do with a muscadine, I know this sounds vicious, but you want to get rid of all these little shoots. If you're diligent, but not too much.

- [Troy] Right.

- [David] You want to leave some leaves but you know, in the winter, usually I prune right before spring, you'll really clean that trunk up.

- Right, get all of your growth up here to your wire so that you have a good strong trunk.

- And train one up to here and the V here is called the crux. You generally want to try to keep it clear so good ventilation and air circulation and get those arms.

- Going out either way.

- Yeah, either way.

- So there's a quite a difference then, between a newly planted plant and even just one year worth of growth.

- [David] Exactly, we can look at a one I planted last year.

- [Troy] So one year's worth of growth actually already has fruit on it.

- [David] Yes.

- [Troy] And has grown 10 to 12 feet.

- [David] Possibly.

- [Troy] Possibly as much as that. And then eventually will actually take up a whole 20 foot stretch of trellis.

- [David] It doesn't take it, you know within three years you can have it trained 20 feet, yes easy.

- Whereas the American grapes that we looked at a bit ago were planted on eight foot centers.

- Yes. Or 10 foot centers maybe. These actually take up 10 feet in each direction.

- Yeah, 20 feet is the ideal spacing for muscadines.

- [Troy] I have one more question for you, sources.

- [David] My wife when we first moved here, she gave me a little pamphlet and it was from Isons Nursery in Georgia. She just knew I loved muscadines. We both grew up in the south. They happen to be the biggest breeder of muscadines in the U.S..

- [Troy] Okay, and they do mail order.

- [David] Yeah, mail order, you go online and buy from them. They're wonderful people in terms of giving you advice. They've even asked me what varieties have grown.

- [Troy] How you've done with them.

- [David] So I would highly recommend Isons as a reference for muscadines.

- [Troy] Excellent. So whether you choose a table grape or our iconic muscadine, you can grow grapes very successful in Tennessee.

- Greg, as I start into the path of your gardens, I see that the beautiful daylily and I'm not even gonna go any further till you step in with me and give me the name of this beautiful daylily over here.

- That one's June Carter, got to have June Carter in your garden when you live in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

- [Annette] And when you have a little music in your blood.

- [Greg] There you go.

- [Annette] I can tell that there are some specimen trees or shrubs that you've interplanted in here. Purpose being, you don't want to produce shade, do you?

- No, not at all.

- All right, well back here starting with that.

- [Greg] It's a column acer, it's about 25 foot tall with no branching. It just goes straight up in a column.

- [Annette] Now this is beautiful here.

- [Greg] Isn't that gorgeous? That's a redbud ruby falls. It's a weeping variety of that particular tree.

- [Annette] And it does bloom in the spring.

- [Greg] It does, just like the rest of em.

- [Annette] And that's a beautiful accent color. All right then, I'm gonna switch over here to this side 'cause I see some more plant, another plant.

- This is a katsura and it's called Amazing Grace. It weeps and they say in the fall when the leaves begin to drop it smells like cotton candy. That is blue racer. Look at the blue eye on that.

- [Annette] I do see the blue.

- [Greg] Isn't that gorgeous?

- [Annette] And we are high noon and it's still fresh. Now then, here's another specimen plant that you've put in here.

- [Greg] It's a little coral bark maple. In the wintertime and early spring those limbs are just a brilliant red coral. It does something in the wintertime when everything else is kind of dead, it just has that beautiful red color to it.

- [Annette] Yes, and you know, right beside it, I can't help but see this beautiful daylily right here. That's got some blue in it also. Blue bayou.

- [Greg] Isn't that gorgeous?

- [Annette] That is. And you know when I look at your garden right here, yes it's hot, direct over head, but I see the result.

- [Greg] Six to eight hours is a really good number to go by for daylilies.

- [Annette] Every garden needs a tomato, so you've got this very aesthetically pleasing in here among your daylilies.

- [Greg] Nothing better than a good old BLT sandwich in the summer time.

- [Annette] Amen. I had one last night for dinner. Now, right before me, this is a ginkgo, but now it looks different.

- [Greg] It's a dwarf, it's called Jehosaphat. That's the reason I got it, cause I love the name, and I had to have that, being a preacher. But this one only gets about 10 foot tall and it has actually grown this way. It gives a lot of interest to the garden.

- [Annette] But I know that you are a minister of music.

- [Greg] Correct.

- [Annette] And I'm gonna have to say there is some study that has been done, that plants like music. So when you get to practice a new song with the choir, do you come out here and sing to these day lillies?

- [Greg] I sing to em, that's why they look so good. That's like natural fertilizer.

- [Annette] They definitely look good, I could attest to that. Now walking on further with you, this is a different thing and I see fruiting on this.

- [Greg] This is a Japanese goumi berry. My son told me about these. These came from a gentleman down in southern Tennessee that grew them and I got them at the Franklin Farmer's Market. These berries are very antioxidant, they're good for you. This plant is one of the only plants known that actually put nitrogen back into the soil instead of taking it out.

- I want to find out more about this one.

- Isn't that gorgeous? That is Color of Laughter and that was hybridized by my dear friend, Tim Bell, down in south Georgia. It is just beautiful.

- [Annette] If you feel this, it almost feels like a piece of leather.

- [Greg] It does and they call this, the little edging around it, a lot of people call that chicken fat.

- [Annette] And I know that you have some other things of interest in your garden. Like you have art work, you have shade, but I have to say, it's just plain fabulous.

- [Greg] Thank you, thank you. This is the first cross that I made. I have yet to register it, but I'm probably gonna register it this year because it has a lot of things that make it worthy. The bud count has a lot of buds. It's a smaller one. The throat is very green, that's very popular with folks. So in 2011, it bloomed for the first time while I was still in Florida. I've named this on Miney Kay after my wife, who when she was a toddler, couldn't say Melanie, she said Miney. So her middle name's Kay, so I've named it Miney Kay.

- [Annette] What was it that gave you this interest in this particular plant family?

- [Greg] Well, Melanie's father had a friend in Tuscaloosa who hybridized and when he would get something that he didn't necessarily want to register, he would give it to Melanie's dad. Then he shared 'em with me. So that's what got it started, probably back in the mid 90s.

- This is a great use of a space in your garden where you can join together the past and the present, can't you?

- Mm. Hmm.

- And, introduce us over here.

- This is my wife, Melanie. She's a big part of this garden. She's a big part of the success of the garden.

- [Annette] This structure that we're sitting under.

- Saw one at the Nashville Garden Show about three and a half years ago. I said 'Can you build that?' He said 'Absolutely can.' So he did and we brought some elements into it. The screen door and the bricks are actually from Melanie's grandfather. He collected bricks to build his house back in the 50's, and so several trip loads of brick from Alabama to bring up here to put in the floor.

- Every mile was a joy wasn't it?

- It was, yes it was. It's just a great place to sit in the shade and look at all the things in the garden. It's the beauty that God has done. It's just incredible.

- To have a continuous supply of fresh vegetables in late summer and early fall, we plant the late summer gardens in June and July. These gardens have the crops that love hot weather. They're not gonna be as bothered by droughts and 95 degree days like some of the other crops. Sweet potatoes are planted the first week of June. I've put lime on the field because there's a disease called scurf, it's a superficial black skin disease that'll get on the sweet potatoes if the soil is acidic. Putting lime on at the rate of a ton to the acre, or 50 pounds to 1,000 square foot will sweeten the soil up enough where the sweet potatoes will really thrive. We spread 40 loads of biodynamic compost on this garden. It's about an acre. That would be about a cubic yard or a cubic yard and a half for a thousand square foot garden or a coating of about 1/3 of an inch. We plant the sweet potatoes in ridges that are four feet apart and we put the slips 16 inches apart in the row. If I plant them farther apart, like two foot apart, the sweet potatoes tend to get real big like giant footballs. So we plant them closer together so that they don't get much bigger than this. Nobody really wants a sweet potato much bigger than that anyway. The pepper patch is also planted the first week of June. With peppers and eggplants and sweet potatoes, I've found that I can hoe them, the whole field, one less time simply by planting a few weeks later. If I plant them in early May, they just sit there waiting for the weather to get hot while all the weeds grow up. If I just wait a couple of weeks and do nothing, then I can plant and it's so hot that the plants just grow so fast that they don't need to be hoed as much. Of course that's a real benefit for us. Our favorite peppers are the Italian frying peppers. Corno di Toro, otherwise knows as bull horns. This one is Carmen and this one Escamillo. These are really good tasting peppers and they grow really well. We also grow cayennes, like these here. We have jalapenos. Then the yellow bells that we grow are a variety called Gypsy. After the last path with the cultivators in the pepper patch, I put the hillers on and we hill them up to help hold them up and conserve moisture around the plant roots. Then we sprinkled a mulch of hay down. This also helps to preserve moisture so the peppers can just keep on putting out their peppers. They'll do that until the first frost comes in the fall, at which time we'll harvest bushels and bushels of em and put em in a cool place where they'll store for four to six weeks. We count on peppers to be the star of our late summer gardens! The eggplant varieties we grow are Nadia, which is a black beauty type of eggplant, big, dark, purple fruits. Then over here we have a slender, Japanese Ichiban type of eggplant. These are Orient Express. Flea beetles are the real problem with growing eggplants. They're the little black beetles that make the holes in the leaves. But flea beetles aren't so bad in the summer time as they are in May. So we've found that simply by planting later we avoid that problem. Okra is another heat loving, late summer garden plant. I've found that if I put the seeds in the ground in June, in five days the plant pops up. If I plant in May, it'll take 10 days or two weeks to sprout and then that's just much more weeding I have to do. So we always wait and plant the okra at the same time we plant the peppers and the sweet potatoes. This variety is burgundy, it's a purple okra. Doesn't it have beautiful blooms? This bloom can tell you that okra is in the hibiscus family. This variety of okra is Clemson Spineless. As soon as our beet crop comes out in mid July we plant another late summer garden. Here we have alternating rows of green beans and cucumbers. They're companion plants who like to grow next to each other. Over here we have a row of Jackson Wonder lima beans. That's always a good crop for the fall. We have them between two rows of summer squash. This is an Italian heirloom called Tromboncini, or little trombone. They're used as a summer squash in the immature stage and then as they mature they turn into these five foot long snake like tan squashes that can be used as a winter squash. They're sort of like a butternut, they're in that family. Asparagus bean is also known as the Chinese yard long beans. You can tell by the dark, leathery foliage that these beans are in the cow pea family, along with black eyed peas and crowders and purple hulls. They love hot weather and don't seem to be bothered by droughts or anything that happens in the summer time. These beans are eaten in the immature stage, like you would a green bean. These climbing beans are a flat podded purple bean. That we got from some neighbors of ours Ed & Margaret. He brought me this bag of beans that he had been saving for years and years, he was an older fellow and he handed it to me, it was like he was giving me his first born child or something. He was real proud of these beans. We really like em too. Our last late summer garden is where the potatoes were growing. So we pulled the potatoes out in the end of July and immediately planted more beans and cucumbers and summer squash and also our favorite shelly bean, Taylor's Dwarf Horticultural bean. We simply call them, October beans, because that's the month that we sit on the porch and shell out our winter supply. October beans can also be eaten though, in the green bean stage when they're like this big right here. They make a very good snap bean. This row of lima beans was planted a couple of weeks after that other row and doesn't seem to be nearly as bothered by the bugs. Lima beans love the hot summer weather and all of these crops are crops that just thrive the hotter it is, the more they like it. Spring is for planting, but so is summer. We have to keep on planting during the summer so that we can have good food for our tables all year long.

- For some reason, flower arranging can be very intimidating for the home owner. I'm gonna give you a couple of tips and tricks to utilize the flowers that are around your house and a few things that you can pick up at a local grocery store. This is an orchid that I picked up for less than 10 dollars. These little hair clips and things, I like to remove those just 'cause I think they're kind of tacky. I'm gonna kind of spruce this up and make it more like, a $100.00 orchid than a $10.00 orchid. So just taking these sticks out and you can see the stems, they pretty much still stand up. So you don't necessarily need those stakes, themselves. Remove this pot. Kind of loosen up the roots themselves too. Be really careful on the orchids 'cause when you break the roots, just kind of massage it out of the pot. If you snap them they're gonna die. So if you just kind of wiggle it a little it'll pop right out. Putting a little moss in there first for the bottom. So we've covered all the roots with moss, as you can see. Some care on this is don't over water it. Just keep it a little moist. It's kind of created a little atmosphere of its own, so you don't need to water it excessively. The orchid should live longer in this too and also don't have it in any direct sunlight. That's gonna hurt it. So it'll be a really good houseplant. Some alternatives for an orchid would be a bromeliad, or any low light plant, like a begonia or a philodendron vine or something works really well in this kind of environment. A very simplistic, modern approach is to use just one type of flower and a really kind of angular vase and then a really neat interesting, unexpected element, like gears. These are just bicycle gears that I've cleaned up and gotten the oil off of. You'd want to spray them with a clear coat as well so they don't rust in the water. But I'm just gonna simply put a few of these orchid sprays kind of at an angle in the water. These are dendrobium orchids, they're just simple and clean and pretty and white. Then you're gonna want to drop these gears kind of around it. Kind of space em apart so they're not all on top of each other, like so. Very simple, this should last up to a month or so. Orchids last a really long time in water. This is what I call, let the flowers do the work. Something as simple as a bunch of roses massed together is really easy and beautiful. This is something anyone can do. Just kind of cutting them real short and putting them in a vase. So the most important thing is just to try. You might be surprised at what a beautiful creation you can come up with.

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