Tag Archives: Wine

Not even 9am

It isn’t even 9am and to look at me one would think I had been working in the yard all day. The humidity is rather high, to be expected with all of the rain we have had lately. The highs have been in the upper 80s – low 90s and being the heat wimp I am my gardening outings are pretty much limited to early mornings and evenings. I am on vacation for the next two weeks so I will have a number of extended mornings to play.

Yesterday I finished harvesting the red and white currants. I have a 1 gallon batch of red currant wine from last year’s frozen berries brewing. It tasted pretty good with the light alcohol fizz as it went into the secondary. The recipe calls for leaving it for at least two years before drinking.

The blackberries should be rip within the next couple of weeks. I will have to net them this week or early next.

The spring crop of raspberries has been very disappointing. There really isn’t one. My typical m.o. with the raspberries is to alternate the two beds for spring crops. In other words a bed is cut to the ground in the winter every other year. The bed that was supposed to have a spring crop this year went wild sending up new canes. This will make for a bumper fall crop sans any catastrophies, but I am missing the early berries.

The beans are up and not nearly as thick as I would have hoped. I didn’t get the germination I usually do with the Southern States seeds. There should be enough to enjoy them though.

The gooseberries are about to start. It looks like it will be a bumper crop again this year. I have a 1 gallon batch of gooseberry wine brewing from last year’s berries in the basement.

The figs are looking like they don’t have a care in the world. I really expected some rust as wet as it has been but nothing yet.

I sprayed the grapes with the organic fungicide (Serenade) yesterday but I am afraid I was too late as I saw some black rot on several clusters.

I got the posts and cages in the ground for the tomatoes today. I will tie them up tomorrow. So far the deer and rabbits have respected the fence.

I was rather disappointed to see that what was white echinacea last year has come up purple this year. They either don’t come true to seed or there was cross pollination. I thought at least I would see last year’s white flowers but nothing yet.

The birds seem to be leaving the blueberries alone this year. It could be that the mulberry next to the porch where they are growing is full of berries or it could be that they are a little more hidden among the other plants on the porch. In either case I am grateful not to have to fool with covering them this year.

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Oh Mother!

I’ve heard it’s appearance compared to liver and if I had been strictly feeding red wine I could see how that would be so. This gelatinous mess is mother of vinegar. It forms on the surface of vinegar or wine that is becoming vinegar. I know it looks nasty as it can be but if you have never had homegrown vinegar you have missed out. After having my first taste I refuse to buy that nasty white stuff in the plastic bottles for anything other than cleaning.

I bottled a gallon of peach wine and a gallon of raspberry wine today. Bottling day is usually a major vinegar feeding day too. I usually get a little over 3 bottles per gallon and the ‘little over’ goes into the vinegar barrel in the kitchen along with what ever partial bottles are in the fridge that are past their prime. I used to try to position the tube part of a turkey baster just right so as not to disturb the floating mother. Once or twice of wine spilled all over the place and a drowned mother was enough to give that up. Now I usually fish the mother out and discard it prior to the major feeding. There is enough of the bacteria in the remaining vinegar to convert the new wine and create another mother over time. If I don’t remove it, the act of feeding will submerge it and cause it to fall to the bottom. This just ends up plugging the spout on the side of the barrel. No good if I ever hope to harvest any of this goodness. This is the thickest mother I’ve had so far at almost an inch thick.