Garden of Grapes May 07 2014

This is the first year ever to have grapes in the garden!  From the moment I was able to identify the silver little things on tips of the vines to be flower buds I was full of joy.  It's been about 1.5-2 months since the little buds came and now the largest grapes on the vine are starting to turn purple.  I find this to be the prettiest stage of the grapes because that hint of blue is starting to show through the green, creating such a frosty appearance.

There are quite a few clusters of this Japanese purple variety on the vine so in a couple more months we would have so much grapes to share with family and friends.  Hopefully they will continue to do well and grow into beautiful clusters of purple jewels.  

It occurred to me today that we can use these leaves as food too!  Many Mediterranean dishes use them to wrap food.  You can eat them raw, baked, steamed, however you like!  It is best to pick the young leaves so they won't be so tough. I'm really looking forward to using these leaves.

The first thing I made use of the leaves were to place my chocolate pudding on top.  I just love how natural it displays this little piece of heaven.  :)