North Carolina muscadine grape program offered by Happy Dirt
Happy Dirt, Durham, N.C., is offering an organic muscadine grape program.
With the organic muscadine grape program, Happy Dirt and Thomas Yates Baker III, one of the company’s North Carolina farmer-partners, are working to build awareness around the grape’s unique flavors, adaptability and health benefits, according to a news release.
The company’s organic muscadine season begins in August and runs through late September, the release said.
Baker has been growing organic muscadine grapes since 2009 and is one of a handful of organic muscadine grape producers in North Carolina, the release said. Baker has 600 vines of three fresh-market varieties: nesbitt, supreme and triumph. The nesbitt and supreme muscadine varieties are black (or red), and the triumph variety is bronze.
“When I was a kid, the scuppernong vine that granddaddy had produced these bronze grapes that I just thought were the sweetest things in the world,” Baker said in the release about one of the muscadine grape’s bronze varieties. “And much to my surprise, the triumph that we grow here, which is another bronze variety, is so much sweeter.”
The sweetness of fresh market muscadine varieties make them the perfect table grape, the release said.
“The two ways that I am most familiar with is, one, you just pop the grape in, chew it and spit out the seeds,” Baker said. “I prefer to find the stem scar on the grape, pop the pulp into my mouth, swallow the pulp whole, and throw away the husk.”
Muscadine grapes have incredible health benefits and are a sustainable and adaptable crop in the Southeast, Baker said.
“This was something I didn't learn until much later in life,” Baker said. “I've always known they were delicious. I didn't know how healthy they are.”
Muscadine grapes have more antioxidants than blueberries and other table grapes, the release said. The grapes are well-adapted to the South’s heat and humidity and resistant to most grapevine viruses, according to the release.
“It’s all about the dirt. And if you get that where it needs to be, then your fruit is going to be good," Baker said.
For more information about Happy Dirt’s organic muscadine program, contact alex@happydirt.com.
