WINE GARDEN

[Waldo]

Now that will make some mighty fine juice for blending with others for some great wine

 

[Wade E]

Jobe, the 1's I found on a tree are about an inch and NW's are at least 3 x's bigger. NW, those are huge!

 

[NorthernWinos]

All the apples got big this year...hard on the tree limbs.


This is a Trail Crabapple....they are sweet and crisp.....the nursery I got them fromdoesn't have them any more, St. Lawrence Nursery might have them........they are near 2 inches in diameter this year. The first year the tree bared the deer ate every one of them...the past 2 years they fell off before I got to them...so this is the first time I loaded up on them....lost 2 branches tho....

...poor little tree...I should have propped up some branches.

Edited by: Northern Winos

 

[Wade E]

NW, that is just amazing how many and the size of them per branch!

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

I think the good folks at Miracle Grow could learn a thing or two from NW.

 

[NorthernWinos]

They have never been fertilized or sprayed....Just a good year....Lots of rain in June...then none since the beginning of July.

 

[grapeman]

St. Lawrence doesn't have them either but have a cross using trail that sounds very similar.




Hardiness: E—Extremely hardy, V—Very hardy, M—Moderately hardy, P—May need extra protection.
Code column: a-notably annual bearer (many cultivars without this code bear annually, but an "a" tree exhibits exceptionally dependable annual bearing b-baking c-cider e-eating f-ornamental flowers g-jelly j-juicy k-keeper l-large fruit o-aromatic p-productive r-ripens over long season s-sauce u-unusual flavor v-vigorous y-bears young $-sells well at market stands, DR(sfr)-Disease Resistance to ``s'' (scab),``f'' (fireblight), or ``r'' (cedar apple rust).

<TABLE border=1>
<CAPTION>

<T></T>
<T>
</T></CAPTION>
<T>
<TR>
<TD>Variety</TD>
<TD>Hardiness</TD>
<TD>Parentage</TD>
<TD>Color</TD>
<TD>Season</TD>
<TD>Description</TD>
<TD>Code</TD></TR>
<TR vAlign=top>
<TD><A name=Trailman></A>Trailman Apple-crab</TD>
<TD>E</TD>
<TD>Trail X Osman</TD>
<TD>Green overlaid with red</TD>
<TD>Early-mid</TD>
<TD>Superhardy crabapple about 2 inches in diameter, with good eating and canning quality. Flesh crisp, juicy. Tree vigorous and productive.</TD>
<TD>e, p
s, v</TD></TR></T></TABLE>

 

[NorthernWinos]

That sounds a lot like this little tree.


I have to get out there and finish picking the high limbs before we get anymore wind storms.


This photo will make you cringe....hard on the branches....who'd have thought all the apples would have made it through the June-Drop.

 

[NorthernWinos]

The Highbush Cranberries are still hard as little rocks....

The baby Elderberry bushes that got set out this spring are blooming now...dang fools!!!!

Rabbits have found the Black Currants and young Nanking Cherry bushes...looks like we are going to go into battle soon....might have to fence that little area with some chicken wire....as well as some traps. Jim has been burning all the brush piles around the farmstead in hopes to eliminate their habitat....sure is a struggle to fight with Mother Nature as well as all the wildlife.

Edited by: Northern Winos

 

[grapeman]

Such irony....... You planted many shrubs, bushes and trees from the wildlife habitat program and now you have to get rid of some wildlife habitiat! Guess you were too sucessful in getting them to propagate(animals that is)

 

[Waldo]

A couple of cats roaming the area will help too

 

[grapeman]

You are onto something there Waldo. When Imoved to this side of the farm almost 30 years ago we were overrun with rabbits and bears. We got a herd of cats built up and my sister who lives next to me keeps lots of them now that roam my fields. Not a lot of mice, squirrels, chipmunks or rabbits anymore - only catshi.....t!

 

[NorthernWinos]

Harvested some of the Valiant Grapes last night.....some of the stems were turning brown and the grapes were easily knocked off the clusters.


Picked 17# of cleaned grapes...Running them through the juicer today, will either have breakfast juice or make wine with the jars of juice...

Valiant Grapes have tight little clusters of sweet grapes...

They are very disease prone and since I removed the mulch, keep the ground clean and spray regularly have had luck with no diseases....having a dry mid-summer probably helped too. This June was very wet and I did spray regularly....lets hear it for chemical fungicide....

Sometimes you have toNOT be organic.


The fall raspberries [Redwing] are producing, but have a black and brown beetle that is out there this year....don't want to spray, just pick a few berries for ice cream treats and pancakes...have enough juice and berries in the freezer for 3 more batches of wine.


The Everbearing Strawberries are producing as well and still blooming, those I am stashing in the freezer for wine....they are nicer since the rain of a couple weeks ago, more rain forecast now...However....the slugs are still out there. I have found that rather than sacrificing a can of beer to drown the little devils in, I leave them some over ripe berries.....Before I would toss the berries they had munched on into the straw path and the birds would find them...Now I just leave the berry they ruined near some unripe berries and they willtotally eatit and seem to leave the freshly ripened ones alone till theirs is gone....been working, still do loose some to the slugs.

 

[Wade E]

Nice looking grapes there NW!

 

[grapeman]

Autumn in the Wine Garden is almost as good as summer in the vegetable garden, but certainly better than winter in the living room.


Do those grapes taste like Concord or do they have a different flavor?


I believe in minimal spraying with the safest chemicals or biologicals available. I try not to spray on a schedule, but rather let the pest pressure dictate when and how often to spray. Watch application rates- too little can be worse than none at all, and too much is dangerous. If you apply too small of an amount, it gives less than perfect control and can lead to mutations and resistance buildup. Know how to ID the pest or disease, learn it's life cycle and find out what effectively controls it. Monitor the pest pressure and when it reaches the proper threshhold at the right life stage, apply spray as a last resort.


Take for instance a powdery mildew infection late in the year. The grapes have been harvested and the leaves will be dying in a few weeks. Should you just wait it out and let nature take it's course? If there is a lot of it, control it before the end of the growing season. There will be much less overwintering pathogen to get the cycle going the following spring.

 

[NorthernWinos]

I really have never tasted a Concord grape except in Welch's juice...I think they taste like a Concord, at least the juice I make does....The Valiant is a cross between a wild grape and Fredonia....I only got a few grapes off of my Fredonia vine before it died. The Beta grapes are a cross between a wild grape and Concord....The Valiant and Beta taste much alike...but the Valiant is sweeter and not as strong.


I had a tiny bug eating some holes in the grape leaves this summer....they soonleft and went over to the raspberries and ate holes in those leaves, which I didn't care about...other than that I have had no bugs in the grapes.


I had read that planting roses at the ends of the grape rows will be a good indicator of grape vine disease as the roses show the disease sooner and signals you when to spray....


So, I planted roses at the ends of the grape rows...

Then found out these were disease resistant roses...so they just are pretty there.


The only apple tree left with apples is the Harlson Red...

it is a late-keeping apple...so all the other early apples are now either juice, given away and a few in the fridge for eating. The new trees we planted will be later ripening apples.


The grapes are all ripening quickly now....even the Swenson Red...this year they arevery dark in color.....they sure have tough skins.

The white grapes are turning a slight amber color, I suppose I should monitor them with the refractometer...I kind of forget about those because of the color doesn't change much, but now they are starting to look translucent.


Hard to believe that it could freeze within a month and all this good stuff will be gone.....Hope the grapes all ripen before then.

 

[Wade E]

I think that boot looking fungus is telling you there is a disease thats about to kick in.

Edited by: wade

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

Grapes are looking really good, hope they continue well for you.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Well I picked the Beta Grapes...they were starting to drop when you'd touch them, some of the stems were turning brown and some were looking like they were shriveling up....so picked them the other evening. I got 39# off that one old timer Beta vine out there...I didn't prune it very much this year....It produced on about 8 feet of vine in each direction of the main trunk...it must be 30 feet long from one end to the other....Next year it gets cut back as I have set out some baby plants on each side of it.


The berries are larger than the Valiant, they are looser and have a longer stem and are easier to cut from the vine.


The flavor is much stronger than the Valiant, very much like Concord grape juice. I got 22 quarts of breakfast drinking juice...I added a little water to the steam extracted juice as the flavor is very strong, could have added even more water to dilute it.


The vines are very disease resistant, extremely hardyand would be a good choice for anyone who wants to make juice and great grape jelly. I have never tried making wine from this juice...maybe someday....the Brix ranged from 18 to 20.5....so it wasn't very sweet.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Light frost was predicted for North of us...I covered some of the garden andalso picked the few grapes that were out on the Louise Swenson vines, Edelweiss and Swenson Red even had a few clusters....

I got 15.5# of fruit....surprised me....

The two Louise Swenson vines were loaded...I thought they only had a few clusters...the berries are large and flavorful....

I will ferment them together and have about 1 1/2 gallon batch of Trinity Wine.