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Showing posts from March, 2013

Bumper grape harvest

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Principle 9: Use small and slow solutions My mate Brian gave me a grape cutting that he'd nurtured as a house warming gift not long after we moved in. Two and a half years later we got our first harvest, 9.2kg for the season - not bad... and they were superb! Seedless grapes on a two and half year old vine Fortunately we didn't need to harvest all of the grapes at once, as they weren't all ready at the same time. By planting the vine along the laneway on the east side of the block, near the water tank / cellar / carport, different parts of the vine were shaded at different times - which (I think) helped distribute the harvest time. Still, there were times when there were more ready than we could eat, so we gave some away and decided to dry the rest in our solar dehydrator . Grapes picked off the bunch and spread  into an old seedling tray, then stacked in our solar dryer. I first tried an experiment of drying some grapes on the bunch and some off. The ones on