What it is
Mustang Grape (Vitis mustangensis) is in the Vitaceae (Grape) family. The fence-line grape of Texas - ferociously acidic raw, but the backbone of generations of jelly and country wine. If a grapevine is swallowing a fence in July, it's probably this.
How to grow it
It wants full sun, water it none needed - fully wild-adapted, and give it any soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0-8.0. Space plants about N/A - foraged apart. Expect roughly Ripe mid-June to August. Hardy native.
How it's used
Mustang Grape is used: jelly, juice, wine (sweetened).
🔎 How to identify it
- Leaves whitish and woolly underneath - the giveaway
- Forked tendrils opposite the leaves (true grapes)
- Loose clusters of large purple-black grapes
Edibility
How to grow & propagate mustang grape
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate mustang grape
Grapes and muscadines root from dormant hardwood cuttings taken in winter — a length of pencil-thick cane with a few buds, stuck in soil with one bud above the surface. They can also be layered: bend a cane to the ground, bury a section, and it roots while still attached to the mother vine.
Beginner's path: take more cuttings than you think you need. They're free, they cost you nothing but a few minutes, and the ones that take more than make up for the ones that don't. This is how a single plant becomes a hedge, a row, or a gift for every neighbor on the street.
Growing mustang grape in Texas
Give it full sun and any soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Because it's a perennial, the work is mostly up front. Get it sited and established and it comes back on its own year after year — one of the best returns on effort in the whole garden.
Once it's rooted in, this is a low-water plant — overwatering does more harm than drought here. Water deeply to establish, then back off and let it prove how tough it is.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly ripe mid-june to august before you're harvesting. The part you're after: ripe purple-black fruit, processed.
Making more for free
Save it the easy way — vegetatively. Because you can clone this plant from a cutting, division, or piece of root, you never have to buy it again: keep one healthy mother plant and make all the copies you want.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.