Norton and Muscadine wine making
I found a local vineyard that sells Norton and Muscadine grapes. Had planned to pick 200-400lbs of Norton, but after several hours of picking and having to pick out the bad grapes from 90% of the bunches, decided to pick muscadines instead.
Here is a good bunch, not many were like this.
Here are the Muscadines.
Ended up with 40 lbs of Norton grape and 60 lbs of muscadine. It takes about 100 lbs of fruit to make 6 gallons, soooooo that’s right I got lazy and just decided to crush them together. I know you shouldn’t mix, but dude I was wiped out after picking most of the day. By the way you pick muscadine, one grape at a time.
So here is what it looks like after yeast and the fermentation working well.
Time to make Asian Pear wine
Picked what I could. Check out how tall that pear tree is. Really need to figure out a way to get the pears at the top of the tree. Should have enough to make 6 gallons. Crushed and then pressed. Got about 7 gallons of juice.
Lasterday corks arrive just in time
Its official, we have a cork with our name on them! Just in time for bottling of watermelon wine.
The watermelon wine is really clear after filtering.
Pumpkins are getting big
I’m guessing 30-40 lb. and its only July.
Japanese beetles are attacking
Well, I leaned a valuable lesson today. I found beetles on my grapevines last week, so I picked up some beetle bags with attractant. It works great, just don’t put near your grapevines. I had bags on each end of the rows and the vines closest to bag were covered with jap beetle and the vines in the middle had few. Note to self: put bags far away from vines next year. Checkout the bag of beetles. I mean what do you do with these things? Also, after a few days of decaying beetles, those bags stink it up pretty good.
Watermelon Wine making time
Picked the watermelons and time to make the wine. First time at making watermelon wine but here goes.
Pressing the watermelon:
Making a yeast starter so I can get a faster fermentation going. Watermelon juice spoils quickly so gotta get it bubbling quickly.
Yeast added to watermelon must.
The fermentation is going well.
Almost at the end of primary and the color is changing to a lighter color.
After racking to carboy I see this wine will be white when done. Did not know that. Discovered most vintners put strawberries in the wine to get that pink color you expect.
Picked all my berries and peaches today
It was time to pick the first year of blueberries and peaches. This is the whole crop. Not bad for first year I guess.
First watermelon
It looked big and ready, but it wasn’t. Leaned that you need to look at the tendril closest to the melon. It needs to look dried up and like a pigs tail. Also the bottom on the melon should look a little yellow not white as mine did. It was okay, just not near as sweet as it should be.
Kudzu
I totally underestimated the resilience of Kudzu. I bush-hogged the vineyard site, use a boxblade to pull roots and clean up. All looked good this fall, but spring and summer has been a fight. Every weekend is a battle to take back and kill this stuff. Kudzu grows about 12″ in 24hrs. With all the travel I’ve been on, by the time I get home, its several feet in length. I’ve used roundup as much as I can, but with all the rain, it just isn’t effective. Digging, hacking, and cutting seems to be the best course of action. I’ve broke one hoe, and bent the other. I’m slowly but surely winning the battle. Each weekend I find new pockets of vines, but less and less each week. I will win this battle!
Corn is ready
Grew Peaches and Cream Corn this year. They are ready to eat. Koda loves looking for the caterpillars. Could careless about the corn. Most of the corn had a least one cat, but only really eating the top of corn with the silk. Put corn on grill. Was very good.
Before and After
Lasterday Wines 
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