Strawberry Wine...

I have never made wine before, but my parents fermented anything that grew.  All types of berries <strawberry, black-red-wild raspberries, current, blackberry, elderberry, etc> , roses, dandelion, fruits of all kinds <apple, pear, plum, sweet cherry, sour cherry, etc>, and even tomato.  Of course, guess who picked all the stuff.  Us kids. 

Last fall I made some hard cider out of apple cider, sugar, yeast, orange peel, and heather tips.  It turned out fantastic, and a friend, who owns Lancaster Homebrew, told me he guesstimated it was about 20% ABV.   It wasn't my intention of making it that strong.  <yeah, right>.  After giving some to friends, the rest is sitting in the basement "aging" till Thanksgiving. This is what it looked like after bottling.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled program... Strawberry Wine.

Here's the berry's.  They are Earliglow variety, which are smaller, but have a superior flavor... perfect for jams or wine... more about jams in another post.  About 18qts or 25lbs... give or take...

and some pretty closeups... <like you have never seen strawberries before>

 

Here is 25lbs of strawberries mashed up in a 6gal bucket.  This is called the must, or wort.  To this I added the pectic enzyme to break down the berries, and sodium metabisulphite to kill any wild yeast that is on the berries.  

The must sat for 24 hrs before adding the water, yeast, and yeast nutrient.  And my first video!!!!   WoooHooo 

Whitecombs Produce

This is my friends farm stand.  He does the farming, and his brother does the greenhouses.  They are 3rd generation on the same land and Denny's son is graduating from high school this year, and is next in line.  The brothers started out with a makeshift roadside stand and grown over the years.  Here are some pics of their place and the link

 

Stiegel Glassworks

My town was started by a glassblower 250 years ago on June 8th, or thereabouts.  During the 1960's a group of business men in town wanted to bring back the heritage of the town for the bicentennial, and brought in glassblowers a few weeks a year.  It was resurrected again by new blood last year and some original members of Stiegel Glassworks 1976, and has been going strong.  I like to  hang out watch.  I've even played a bit with the glass.

It's been fun watching the glass work evolve as time passes.  Last year they were making glass ornaments and roses.  Roses are significant because Stiegel gave land for the church in return for payment of one rose a year.  Now they are doing all kinds of very cool stuff.  I love watching any type of craftsman who excel at their craft.  Jeremy, Chip, Deb, and the gang are at various stages of talent, but it is a blast to watch them.  Here's some of their latest stuff.... and this is just the glass that was in the shop from the last few weeks.

Jeremy starting a bowl.

Flashing it in the newly built (3 weeks ago) glory hole.  The glass furnace is just to the right.

Shaping with tongs.

Most end up on the shelf, but this one didn't.  It fell off the punt. Check out the FB page

Yes, the second bed is filled and planted...

finished it today, and LG and I planted what I purchased at Landreths yesterday.  Tomato's, Peppers, and Egg Plant.  But, not any ordinary stuff.  I'm gonna call them tomorrow to hopefully get permission to use some of the pics from their website.  Words do not do justice.  If not, i'll link it... i think

The haul from yesterday, and LG has another flat of plants she's been jones'n to get in the ground.  13 different variety's of tomatoes, 5 different sweet peppers, and 4 egg plant.

And my reward for a weekend of playing in the garden...

and it comes with a great view...

STRAWBERRIES !!!!! and tomatoes, peppers, eggplant

Saturday I picked up "Short One" and we went down to Landreth Seeds in New Freedom for Heirloom Plants... mostly tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. More on that later, or maybe another post. 

Then we picked strawberries!!!  WhoooooHoooo!!!! 

I love berries of any kind, but my fave are these little red orbs of deliciousness.


Tied for a close second are blueberries, blackberries, raspberries (red and black), and currants.  Everything else berry is a close third.  When I get to Heaven, all i wanna do is tend the berry fields, and live in a log home in the woods at the edge of the fields.  Don't need no mansion.

My friend of many years and his brother run a farm store just west of York, PA.  Good People.  Strawberries are the earliest he's ever seen.  He's wondering if he's gonna still have strawberries for all the "Strawberry Festivals" in mid June.  He will. 

Mild winter,
Warm spring,
Early berries bring.
<not quite Haiku>  :-)

Anyway, we picked about 3 flats in about 90ish minutes, but who's counting.  The field we picked in was not picked yet by the pickers, it was a virgin patch.  At first they were sparse, but lots of green and orange ones... next week will rock in that patch.  Short One bumped up a to the other side, and I moved to the middle where plants were thinned out.  Then the fun began.  The berries that were in the sun were ripe, the ones under the leaves were not.  Ignore the tomato plants and upside down bee veil <another post, another time>.

The field... one of about 5 or so... not sure how many acres of strawberries he has.  But I do know how many raspberries he has.  :-)  Yes, Short One picking berries for the first time.

Almost the same vantage point, but looking to the right at the raspberry patch.  Each one of those rows are about 4.5 football fields long... that's a total of 3 miles of raspberry's.  They were planted several years ago.  To the right, outta view, are several more rows planted last year.

These baby's will be ready for picking real soon...

This week, and next... picking and freezing baby... picking and freezing.

Ohhh.... and some pretty weeds.

Washington Boro Swarm

Visiting BeeBoy and Mrs. BeeBoy after work and 5m later he got a call for a swarm that was sitting eye level in a tree.  He asked if I wanted to go along, and the Mrs. is dancing around singing "Who ya gonna call.... BeeBusters."  Neither is quite right, and I fit right in.  Of course i have some pics.

The closeup I'm entering in the Photo Contest at the Popcorn Festival on Memorial Day Weekend in my lil town.  I love small farming town... but I think I already told you that.

Misc-ka-lanious

 Different pics from around the garden.

Bee stuff

The girls are building out the 9th bar.  You can see 5 bars of comb in various stages of completion.  I think this is just cool.  I'm glad i did this now, and didn't wait till next year.

I sent this pic to Beeboy yesterday.  He showed me today that the second to end comb has eggs in the cells.  He blew up the pic and showed me.... dang.  Don't know what the queen was doing all the way out here, but she obviously was.  Tomorrow i'm opening up the whole hive for the LCBS meeting and we'll find out what is on all the other bars.  The red circles are have eggs in the cells.

They look like tiny little white lines.  By day 3, they begin to lay down and turn into little coma's.  The life of an egg.  You might have to blow this up to really see them.

Broccoli and Cauliflower !!!!!

These pics were taken Wed morning... after a few days of good soaking rain.  Was a warm evening and morning and the garden was hopping.  Everything seemed to grow a few inches.

This is the first head of cauliflower... little bigger than a quarter.

And first Broccoli, about the same size. 

We have been eating radishes for a week, lettuces even longer.  The Daikon are great.  LG has been scarfing up most of them.  I found this on hanging on my door yesterday.  Cut and cleaned radishes from the garden, that I just arranged on a bed of garden greens picked 45 seconds ago.  This could be my next calling.  Food Photographer.

The Other Bed...

Saturday afternoon it looked like this.

20 minutes later it looked like this

While I was cleaning it out, my neighbor, who is firing up his grill, yells over, "I was gonna compliment you on the fine crop of weeds you are growing."  I really enjoy my neighbors.  Wise guys, all of them.  :-)

The bed was supposed to get filled with half compost, quarter peat, and quarter vermiculite.  This is how far I got before I got sidetracked with the mulching.

That only filled a quarter of the bed after it was mixed.  The good news... after the beds are filled, all I'll have to do next year is add an inch or two of compost on the top and work it is a few inches.

I gotta try to get the rest filled by this weekend, so i can plant everything else on Saturday.  Neighbors 50th birthday bash Sat night.  Gonna be fun.

Garden Update...

Been a while since i posted any veggie pics.  Things are going good, and green is all over the place.  Was going to finish filling the other bed this past weekend, but ended up weeding and mulching the flower beds. Anyway, here's some pics and an overall at the end.

Beets and the radishes.  Been eating a few of the daikons.  A bit tart than regular, but i like them.

The red onions are rocking.

As are the peas.

The rain kinda beat up the romanescu.  The plant in upper left i think broke internally, but on the outside looks good. Maybe it will come back, maybe not.

Carrots are looking good.  The second planting germinated real well.  I'm gonna have to thin them out a bit.  They take so long to grow, but are worth it.

Lettuces and spinach are doing great.  Been eating out of the patch for a while.  Haven't picked any this week, but just had a great salad.  Was invited for dinner last night, and was going to take a bunch for a salad, but was running out of time trying to get the mulch done.  I don't like mulching, but it looks good in the end.   I hope.

And finally, from bottom to top... 2 rows of brussel sprouts, broccoli, 2 rows of cauliflower, and another broccoli.  And the final pic is the whole garden.