🍇
Grape
🗓 Season: August · September · October
🔍 When is it ripe?
Berries fully coloured and slightly soft. Stem where it joins the bunch turns woody and brown. Seeds easily visible inside. Sweet throughout when fully ripe — taste from different parts of the cluster as they ripen unevenly. Grapes do not continue ripening after harvest.
Very well established wild grapes growing on and along a 20 year old 6' tall chain link fence. Have seen locals harvesting these grapes for most of a decade already.
Both sides of the fence are accessible. Fence runs North/South, along the east side of the very small, almost useless (in its current configuration) "Willow Ridge Park" (owned by the Round Lake Area Park District); this park has no nearby vehicle parking.
The opposite side is accessed from a light industrial park, with a paved drive running parallel to the vines; we have seen people pull right up, hop out and start harvesting.
Rating the taste as "decent" with the proviso that the harvest is late in the fall or even after the first frost, as is the norm with this type of small, wild grape. The folks we spoke with all agreed that the best use was to press or boil-down the grapes and use the juice for jam/jelly or wine.
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