Grapes, wine-making, mowing, and of course: Tomatoes - still more!

Pretty Posies

Before i left i took some pictures of the balloon flowers in front of the Silver Spring house:

Really nice this year!

Peppers

I picked more jalapenos before I went to the farm.  This time I tried making "Cowboy candy".  Here are the peppers before cooking and canning:

About 5.5 lbs from the 2nd picking!  Good yields on the peppers this year.

After canning

I should mention that I have about 5 pints of liquid left from this recipe!  This is typical for this recipe from what I have read online.  I am saving the liquid and will try to can another batch of cowboy candy with it later this year.

Katherine's Tomatoes

Katherine worked on canning the tomatoes i brought back last weekend.  Here are the results:

These are thick sauce.  

She cooked them for about 12 hours on the stove and in the oven.  We figure these would have been about twice as many if we just made our normal "juice/sauce".

Grapes/Wine

Went up to the farm last Friday eve (9/12) and stopped at mom's place to pick grapes.  She has a bunch of concord grapes (and a few other types) that were in desperate need of picking.  I got about 60 lbs!  I had no idea how much i would need for a natch of wine - Google search didn't help a lot in determining how much i should pick.  I picked what I thought was enough for 5-6 gals of wine.

Picked these off of mom's concord vines.  I got a few apples as well.

I started picking these off the bunches Friday night.  I didn't finish the FIRST batch until around 10-ish Saturday!  Here is the first batch ready to wash:

You can see a few of the other - non-concord - grapes in there.

Ready to squish.  In the primary fermentor in a nylon mesh bag

"Juiced" and additives combined and added.  I used plastic wrap over it while the campden tablets did their job.  I couldn't find the lid!

I tied the pulp in a ball in the bag.  i hope this will keep the must from expanding too much and overflowing the bucket.

I started cleaning up the rest of the grapes after I started the first batch "sterilizing" (the campden tablets are potassium bisulfite which kill the natural yeasts which can make things taste funky.)

The 2nd batch (top of photo) with additives.  The first batch ready to receive yeast - on the bottom of photo.

I didn't take photos of the fermenters setup with the airlocks.  I moved them both into the bathroom and set the bathroom thermostat to 70F (the minimum recommended temperature for red-wine ferments).  The recipe says to stir and mess with the bag of pulp daily, but I wont be around to do that!  I hope they don't over expand and leak juice everywhere!

Picked the Orchard!

I decided it was time to pick all the fruits in the orchard.  I read that pears should be picked before they are fully ripe for best turnout.  Here is everything i got:

Asian pears, crab apples and some nice eating apples!  The eating apples and pears are delicious.  Not sure what to do with the 4 crab apples!

Picked some Kale

The kale recovered from the cabbage worm issues and I was able to pick about a bushel and a half of it.   I tried the "kale cracker" recipe with mixed results.  The recipe gives a measurement of "6 leaves" - what size leaves? Sheesh.  I experimented with varying amounts of kale in the cracker.  First batches where mostly just ground almond and sesame - they were good but very greasy.  So I tried adding more kale.  i baked these on silpat sheets in the oven at 250F.  The ones with more kale took longer to become crisp and i think they burned.  They tasted burned.  But then again, they tasted a lot more like kale.  Not delicious.

First batch - mostly ground almond and sesame!  Tasted good but not much kale in them.

Tried adding more kale and putting it through vitamix until all smooth.  About 2 C of kale puree to 1 C nut mix here.

On the silpat, ready to bake for about an hour.

I decided that I had experimented with the cracker recipe enough and proceeded to simply load the rest of the kale into the dehydrator.  After drying I got the kale into 3 gallon size zip locks - with some pressing and crushing.  Later I went back and vacuum sealed the kale into smaller portion that should be about 1 quart each when re-hydrated.

More tomatoes

Picked more tomatoes!  Here is what I started with:

I got a few more cucumbers too.

I decided to save Katherine some pain and started processing them right away.  First I did a dehydrator full of them - about 7 quarts dehydrated looks like this:

This is the second jar like this of dried tomatoes that I have made this season.  

I also went back and vacuum packed the first jar of dried tomatoes in the seal-a-meal bags - smaller portions.  From what I have read, vacuum sealing them will extend their shelf life considerably.  Again, I put them in quart size  portions (I estimate).  I will probably vacuum seal some of these as well, but I want to try powdering some first.  If they powder well i may use them to thicken the regular sauce.

I also "vitamixed' some sauce and canned them.  I pressure cooked most of these:

Vitamixed sauce

Doing them in the pressure cooker only takes 15 mins.  I still added full amount of citric acid and salt.  I did 3 quarts and one pint in the water-bath since there wasn't enough to do full PC run.  A weird thing happened to the first batch of the PC'ed jars when i took them out of the canner they started pinging sealed.  Not that strange, sometimes jars will even seal inside the canner. However, they "unsealed" and resealed several times while on the counter cooling!  Katherine asked in the facebook group and they think it was because the vitamixed sauce has more air in it and it takes longer for it to work its way out.  They said that they should still be good as long as they seal.  I marked the jars in question just in case!  They did all stay sealed (so far).

Tomato Savior!?

While picking  the tomatoes this time I found a carcass of a tomato worm:

Worm carcass with parasitic wasps on him!

Cool!  I hope the parasitic wasps get well established in my area now!

Eggplant picked 

I decided to pick the eggplant before it got too big this year.  I was also afraid that maybe weather would turn too cold and ruin them before I got them!  Last years harvest. Here is the harvest:

Not near as many as last year, but at least i got some after the flea beetle attack!

Picked a few more cabbages too!

The late cabbages are looking really good.  I picked the cabbages and kale and then sprayed them all down with BT.  The worms seem to be under control and I want to keep them that way!

We actually got 2 more than what is shown - we ate them as cole slaw.  Delicious!

Tried drying some pumpkin

I read about drying pumpkin and thought I would give it a try.  I washed a pumpkin well and sliced it thin and placed it in the dehydrator at 150F overnight.  I tried powdering it in the vitamix but it wasn't quite dry enough yet.  I placed the grind into the toaster oven on 150F for a couple more hours then re-tried the vitamix.  This time it made a fine powder.  They say this is a convenient way to store for use as pumpkin puree for pies!  I will have to try that.

Mowed most of the property

Some where along the timeline I managed to mow most of the lawn!  The Huskee mower deck should be in great shape, but the damn thing really mows lopsided.  I adjusted the deck a couple times, but it doesnt seem to help much.I check the spindles - they are mounted fine and the spindles themselves seems to rotate smoothly, so no problems there.  Makes buying that Cub Cadet zero turn more attractive every time I mow!