Busy, busy, busy!
Even without doing (much) winemaking this year, a lot of things still need doing.
Yesterday, we were sending cattle home from summer camp on our organic pasture, leaving Miss Piggy and our six sheep as our winter residents. Much easier to care for in January than cattle! They don’t need lots of water, and the sheep can usually graze through the winter. I keep a few bales of hay on hand in case of real snow. In winter, Miss Piggy gets a warm mash in the evening (yes, Paul cooks for his pet pig every day!); today, she cleaned up the melon and squash plantings and gobbled up the few grapes we discarded during harvest.
It’s been a really good year for winegrowers ([at least since The Freeze in January!] as usual, the Rattlesnake Hills were minimally impacted). Great weather all season, and since mid-September, it’s been the best I recall. The 30 days before harvest are the most critical to wine quality.
With the grape surplus, there is no reason to use grapes that aren’t near perfect. There is no good reason for substandard wine this vintage!
We will probably finish harvest this Saturday for our buyers.
Home winemaking? We would love to turn you on. We have several customers who make 5-150 gallons for personal use. It’s how Paul started 50+ years ago. Give him a call (509-388-1153) if you are thinking about giving it a try. We have a number of varieties that are seeking a destiny.
This week, more garden harvest, more tomatoes and peppers to put up, jars of tomatoes and salsa, chopped peppers and green beans to freeze, and the last planting of sweet corn. Then, seeding beds with greens as a winter cover crop. Unless we have a brutal winter, there will be hundreds of pounds of salad greens to take to the Food Bank in March and April. Usually, we eat greens from the garden most of the winter but don’t have any to share till it warms up in February.
I have seeded beds in November and gotten seeds sprouted. They take off when the soil temperature hits about 40. If not, it was a few minutes and $5 of seed without results, which is pretty insignificant. Mulch the bed with leaves, and the bed is ready to go in March.
The freezers (3: 2 small, 1 medium) are nearly full. There are beans, corn, edamame, peaches, peppers, pesto of several kinds, stuffed peppers, beef, and this year, a lot of albacore tuna, trout, and other produce.
There are lots of jars filled with tomatoes, salsa, and tuna. Peaches, plums, grapes, and apricots are dried and in the pantry, and of course, there are a couple of decades of wine in the cellar.
We have full compost bins, garden and vineyard notebooks to review, and plans to make for the garden and vineyard. How can we improve? What experiments should we try?
