One thing to keep in mind if you want fruit is that you have to cut the plant back hard each fall or winter, because it only flowers on the wooded vines that are one year old. In a small space like ours, you will want to do this anyway, just to keep the vine from wrapping its monstrous tendrils around your neck. (In either case they will invade your dreams.) If you have more patience than I do, you can read more about proper grape-pruning techniques here.

What I like best about grape vines is to stare through the 5000-year-old leaves at the blue sky beyond. At such moments, it's not hard to understand why they were cultivated by the ancients, because they seem to almost whisper 'turn me into an alcoholic beverage so that you can drink me and get wasted.' Our grapes are not uniformly perfect, but many are exceedingly sweet, which also never fails to remind me of one of the great unresolved debates of my childhood, namely: Fanta Grape or Grape Crush?

Bonus lyric featuring grapes from one of the best songs of all-time:

I tell a tale of a girl, but I call her a woman
She's a little bit older than me
Strong legs, strong face, voice like milk, breasts like a cluster of grapes...

Name. That. Tune.

Okay, here!

Previously: In the Weeds: Zinnia Profusion, or, When We Start Thinking About the Death of Flowers

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, The Metropolis Case, will be published in 2010 by Crown.