Category: Local Food

How to Know When to Harvest ORGANIC Grapes for Wine

It was time to test the grapes and decide if I needed to start harvesting yet. I got out my trusty refractometer to see what the sugar levels were at.

There are a number of factors involved in deciding if it’s time to harvest grapes. It’s a balance between grape quality and suitability and readiness for winemaking. And it also all depends on the season–whether you got a lot of rain or very little. This was a great season for my grapes because we didn’t get any rain for the first three months of grape development, so the fruit got really sweet and the acid levels had the chance to lower somewhat.

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Mini Pomegranate? What is This Strange Permaculture Fruit?

I’ve been growing a strange fruit for the last few years in my flower garden, but it also produces a fairly tasty and nutritious fruit. Got any guesses as to what it might be? This video is a little tour of a few unusual fruits perfect for a temperate zone permaculture planting.

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Tropical Summer Greens in My Midwestern Garden

This is a little tour of my garden later in the summer. I started some tropical plants to grow for the midsummer heat and they are thriving. But I’ve also been having some problems with critters eating my regular temperate crops, such as corn. My ideal would be to grow enough corn to provide for my needs, even while I phase out rice in favor of the crop that I can actually easily grow in my part of the country. But if I lose most of the crop to the critters, then maybe it isn’t such a good crop to grow. What will I have to do to be able to get a good crop?

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