Got the bug!

[Duffbeer]

Well if they are, I should be dead cos I drunk quite a bit of this at the weekend:0

[Mamgiowl]

Are your sure Marigolds are not poisonous, I read somewhere that they are.

You can eat marigold petals in salads so they should be OK.

[grandmawoods]

snakes don't like marigolds....my garden is full of them (not snakes)

[Mamgiowl]

snakes don't like marigolds....my garden is full of them (not snakes)

They're supposed to deter white cabbage butterflies too. It's the smell I think.

[Duffbeer]

They're supposed to deter white cabbage butterflies too. It's the smell I think.

Carrot fly too I believe, I always plant marigold near carrots and they seem to do the trick, had carrot fly wipe out three full rows a couple of years ago.

[Mamgiowl]

Not tried it for carrots Duff, but I certainly will this year. Mind, they weren't that effective with the cabbages.

I think it's all to do with the 'brand'. Which ones did you use?

[Duffbeer]

I normally do early nantes, but last year did autumn king, beauties they were too and no sign of that blasted little fly. You could be right though there are many hybrids around now that's resistant to many things. Can't recollect reading the pack so not sure if they were hybrids or not.

Oh hang on, you mean brand of marigold, doh can't remember that either, just that they were French.

[Mamgiowl]

Oh hang on, you mean brand of marigold, doh can't remember that either, just that they were French.

Never mind, Duff, you got there in the end.

[medpretzel]

New wine (1/2 gallon only) on the go....

Rose-Petal wine.

Smells yummy already!


Thinking of starting a gallon of kiwi again tonight, but not sure if I'll get around to it.
I also want to do a 1/2 or even 1 gallon of peppermint, but not sure about it either.


M.

[medpretzel]

Okay, got the bug bad tonight (must be the thoughts of Doncaster show!)



I started an AO mead, with some "tweaks" too.


ooh, and DID start the peppermint wine...

Good times, roll on!


oh yes, the kiwi is now underway too...


WOOHOO

might, just might start a tinned kiwi

M.

[grandmawoods]

You're to fermenting now

[medpretzel]

the tinned kiwi is underway as well.

ROLL ON Pontefract Open Show (POS, which is not a good abbreviation, btw)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


M.

[medpretzel]

Well, I've got the bug again, thanks to the wonderful visit with Bob this weekend.

We went foraging for brambles this weekend, only to find tons of apples, hops, pears, sloes and mahonias growing wild and in the open. (I'm not telling you the location, for someone might steal them!)

- We brought home 18 pounds of apples today.
- About 6.5 pounds of brambles yesterday.
- We found raspberry canes in the wild, no fruit, unfortunately, but we had the seccateurs with us and took some cuttings.
- Wild hops with nice hops on them.
- A wonderful pear tree that will have pears for picking in about a month.
- We also found brambles that had HUGE berries on it today. Lucky that we took the seccateurs with us! We got clippings of that too.
- Showed Bobby "my" vine at the undisclosed location. Also took clippings from that.
- We found something called Mahonia (Oregon-Grape, the State flower of Oregon). Will be picking that soon.
- Will go back soon to pick the sloes as well.

Life is good.... It only would be better if I didn't have to say goodbye to my favorite person in the whole world at the close of the weekend.

But... I'll have a beautifully filled freezer and a newly started bramble wine to remind me of him.


M.

[medpretzel]

And she's off!

Here's the K1-V1116 in action only 24 hours later...

M.

[medpretzel]

In honour of the last virtual wine circle and Colin Tweed's great juice extraction presentation, Bobby bought me a juicer!

And....

We went apple-picking and got about another 20+ pounds of apples, 3 quarts of crabapples, and today 6 quarts of mahonias, about 5 pounds of elderberries.

We dejuiced the apples as Colin demonstrated in his speech, and got about 6.5 liters of juice. We put a crushed campden tablet in the juice, and wow!!! This morning the juice was crystal clear, and tons of sediment fell to the bottom, so ending up with about 6 liters of pure apple juice (10% crabapple)...

With 10 minutes to spare, I jumped on my bicycle and got 16 liters of some really great grape juice from the store (stores close here at 8 pm on Saturdays) for only 79 cents per liter (100% pure juice).

Today we mixed the apple and grape juice to make a very nice rose wine. The yeast starter is started, and it's just about ready to go into the juice.

Currently, we are steam-juicing the mahonias (Google Oregon Grape), and the juice is beautiful!

The cuttings we took last weekend are looking great, and none have died... (now that I said it, they probably will!).

The bramble wine is fermenting nicely, racked into a carboy on Thursday.

The elderberries will be going into the steamer as soon as the mahonias are done.

I love harvesting almost as much as I love making wine!!

M.