Gardening

I started some test plants indoors on January 1st. I started 8 kidney beans. Only two sprouted, and I'm confused as to why but I think it has something to do with them being inside next to the cool window. They are growing and have some beginning bean pods on them. I believe there will be a higher germination rate outside. I also am growing a beuregard and a jewel sweet potato for splits. The beuregard had tons of aphids and has since started to die. The jewel has the correct kinds of leaves I want and is very healthy. I should be able to get several splits out of it. I may have to get another one just in case. I am also trying to grow some kamut wheat indoors and it is just starting to germinate less than a week later. I made some bread out of it and it is relatively white and not very tannic. Grains are big and I'd like to get to growing some of it. I also started 36 giant jalepenos in a pot but only 34 sprouted. They are growing well and I hope to get a lot of growth out of them before spring when I transplant them.

I noticed some animal - probably a deer - ate all of the canes off of my small grapevines in the garden. I am wondering if they will come back in the spring. It also ate the cane off of one of the grafted noirets. About 2 weeks until spring starts so hopefully it starts warming soon.

Winter Update

Well this year was kind of a bust for the grapes. We had a ridiculous amount of rain in the beginning of the year which causes all of my grapes to get anthracnose. Even if I would have sprayed with sulfur, I still don't think it would have helped. I will be spraying sulfur next year to see if it can help the stop of anthracnose which is the only bad problem I have.

The new vines of Jupiter, Neptune, the 4 noirets, and the 1 Marquette are all growing fine and went dormant with no issues.

The concord wines didn't turn out well either. I didn't use any yeast nutrient and the fermentation kept stopping and made some bacterial tasting wine. It definitely is important to use the campden tablets, yeast nutrient, and the pectic enzyme.

With nothing to do until spring, time to start planning the garden!

Lots of new stuff!

I moved the two noiret over to the other side of the yard by the fence. I put Jupiter and Saturn in their place. So, on the side of the house from the front yard to the back yard it's concord seedless, 1st year jupiter, concord, 1st year neptune. On the fence on the other side of starting from the backyard and heading towards the front yard, its 2 first year noiret that are grafted. 2 first year noiret that I transplanted there. A marquette is next, followed by plans for 4 cayuga white vines. The concord is really growing fast. It's probably an average of 6 inches of growth right now. The seedless concord is lagging behind but that's ok.

Budding Out

Well, a few days ago I started to see the buds start to get fuzzy and swell. Now they are very very enlarge and going to pop open their leaves any day now. Very excited about the new year. Did a two cane pruning on each side of the vine for a total of 4 canes. Will be doing VSP trellising this year.

Wine Making Winter 2014-2015

I started my first batch of Concord wine. I got two cans of Welsch's Concord concentrate from the store and added 6 cans of water. Added RC 212, pectic enzyme, and campden tablets. The wine finished fermenting but the flavor wasn't concentrated enough. Also, the alcohol volume wasn't high enough due to diluted sugar. Remade another batch of wine but used 2 cans of water per 1 can concentrate. The fermentation stopped when I racked the wine. Finally, I redid the second formula giving a 20% brix. The wine is now fermenting quite nicely. I started this third batch on 12/30/2014.

Fermentation

The fermentation of the Concord wine was pretty vigorous. I drained the wine last Sunday morning into a secondary fermentation vessel, and it looks like fermentation is already done. The wine is still cloudy so it needs to clear before I bottle it. I don't know how long this will take.

Wine Making

I'm starting my first real batch of wine today. I got two pounds of black table grapes from the store and mashed them up with a potato masher. I then added two cans of Welsch's grape juice concentrate with 6 cans of water. This yields about a 20 brix must. I crushed up a campden tablet at about 2:20 PM , added 2 drops of pectic enzyme, and a fifth of a yeast packet of RC 212. I'll see how if it starts to ferment.