MAKINGS OF A(NOTHER) MESS

In spring it's the mulberries, in fall the wild grapes that splatter all over my "patio" (a large cement slab intended to be the floor of an attached garage that was never completed). The mulberry came up between the slab and the cinderblock foundation years ago and is now quite well established. I trained the grapevine across the deck railing when I found it coming up in the garden, and once it reached the mulberry it spread through it like wildfire.

The mulberry fruits quite early, before the grape begins to leaf out. Mid-summer there's a thick tangle of vegetation shading the patio and deck. By the time the summer has taken its toll on the tree and it begins to lose leaves, the fruit of the vine is nearly ripe.


Quite a nice little system, really, that provides great food resources for the local wildlife, but a bit of a mess for the human puttering around her patio...

With a non-cultivated crop like this (only a portion of what's there—and no, they don't taste any better than the mulberries or wild cherries), there's no need to wonder why vineyards and their associated wineries have become quite popular business ventures here in the county in the last decade or so!