Steve Duncan loves muscadines — and he’s been growing them in his backyard in Pullen Park Terrace for more than 35 years.
by Helen Yoest | photography by Liz Condo

Steve Duncan has lived in the quaint Pullen Park Terrace neighborhood for over 35 years. “It’s a wonderful neighborhood to live in, and I’m so fortunate to have found my home there soon after college,” he says. Located next to Dix Hill, within Dorothea Dix Park, he’s at Raleigh’s highest elevation, which gives him a great skyline view.

It’s an area that’s notoriously neighborly. Duncan had a front-row seat to the Kirby Derby, the quirky annual soapbox race, from its inception in 2002 until it moved to Dix Park in 2017. These days, his neighbors can come together to share in Duncan’s annual grape harvests — well, some of them. “Half my neighbors don’t care for muscadine grapes,” Duncan laughs.

Duncan has loved North Carolina’s native muscadine grapes since he was a young boy. “My earliest recollection of tasting muscadine grapes came when I visited my uncle, Cotton Robinson, in Raleigh,” he says. They weren’t widely grown in his hometown of Bakersville in Mitchell County, due to the harsh winters, but he kept a taste for them.

During his college years at North Carolina State University in the 1980s, he’d go to the farmers market daily to get grapes when they were in season. “Then for December, I’d order muscadine wine from Old South Winery in Alabama,” he says. “I liked their muscadine wine because it tasted like the grape: super sweet and delicious!” He’d have a case shipped to the local bus station, then keep six bottles for himself and give the other six to friends and family “who were crazy about muscadines like me,” he says.

Years later, after settling in Pullen Park Terrace, Duncan developed an interest in growing muscadine grapes himself from his neighbor, Bill Perry. Perry is originally from Johnston County, where he’d grown muscadines. In 2006, Duncan planted his first muscadine grape, purchased from Garden Supply Company on Old Apex Road in Cary. “The clerk said it was a three-year-old vine already producing grapes at the garden center,” he says. This vine still thrives.

For many years, Duncan lived next door to Leslie Beasley, an older widowed woman who was also originally from Johnston County. “We often hung out on her porch; she would cook me meals,” Duncan says. During their years of friendship, Duncan learned that Beasley, who lived alone, had had a rough childhood, picking cotton and doing what she could to survive. “She was as good as they come, the salt of the earth,” he says.

Beasley passed away in 2008, and after that, her son-in-law, David Jones, reached out to Duncan about purchasing her property. “He asked because of the high regard Mrs. Beasley and I had for one another, and to honor the help I had given his mother-in-law over the years,” says Duncan. This prime lot added an eighth of an acre to his existing lot, giving him a quarter acre to work in. The property also included a house, which he’s converting into a guest house and rental property, named after Beasley. “I truly miss her,” says Duncan, who is retired now after 30 years working for Wake Tech.

Using the new lot, Duncan set up an approximately 10-foot-by-20-foot grid system for his vineyard in a sunny location. “I planted a grape on each corner, one in the middle of each corner, and one in the center,” he says. Since the initial planting, Duncan has added 11 more varieties of muscadines. In addition to Scuppernong, Duncan grows Black Beauty, Cowart, Doreen, Darlene, Nobel, Pam, Triumph and Pineapple varietals (the last one is, indeed, reputed to have a slight pineapple flavor).

Duncan also grows Southern Home grapes, which are known for their oak-like leaf shape. “It’s pretty enough to plant in the front yard,” he says, noting that he does extensive research to select the varieties. Another variety Duncan grows is Nesbitt, a large, black, self-fertile cultivar bred in North Carolina that’s the namesake of Dr. William B. Nesbitt, a professor at NC State known for developing muscadine cultivars. Says Duncan: “It’s one of the most cold-tolerant fresh market varieties available and one of the top five fresh cultivars recommended in North Carolina.”

More than a casual grower of muscadines, Duncan takes on the role of a citizen scientist, sharing his vineyard as a demonstration garden with groups such as the Wake County Master Gardeners. “Steve is a life-long learner — he could have had two grapevines, but instead did his research to cultivate a richness of flavors,” says Jeana Myers, Duncan’s neighbor and friend. “Everything he takes on is done with thoughtfulness and attention to detail.”

“I have so many grapes, I can eat them each day while in season, plus give them to neighbors, family and friends and share with our neighbor, Healing Transitions — and still have enough to fill a chest freezer with 40 to 50 gallons of grapes, with some leftover,” says Duncan. He eats his grapes all year in smoothies. “I believe in the health benefits and anti-aging properties of the resveratrol in the grapes,” he says.

Duncan’s vineyard offers visual interest year-round, especially in the winter and early spring, when you can see the vines unobscured by leaves. What started as a seasonal necessity — he must prune his grapevines in winter, because they’ll only fruit on new growth — turned into an opportunity for artistic expression. Duncan first learned to prune through the Wake County Extension Service (“It’s a bit intimidating at first, but pretty straightforward once you get the knack of it.”) but learned from Perry that pruning doesn’t have to be linear.

“Bill taught me I could prune in a topiary fashion or shape, he showed me I could be creative with the design and pruning,” says Duncan. His vineyard now includes a latticework tunnel from his back door to the shed, as well as a basketweave over the picnic table area in this backyard. Says Duncan: “Sometimes I take the vines, swirl them on the ends, and do fun things to make them look interesting.” 

Duncan’s garden includes an old shed with a red-painted door that came from a coworker at Wake Tech who needed it removed. “I tore it down and reconstructed it in my backyard,” says Duncan. He made the wreath on the door from his vines: “I often make them and give them away as gifts.”

This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of WALTER magazine