Bumper grape harvest

-
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 the bunch took longer to dry and were challenging to remove from the fragile stalk (once dried). I felt that removing them from the stalk before drying was a better way to go.

Picking the grapes off the bunch takes time, but is quite a relaxing job and something that the kids could help with. About 500 grams worth fitted into one of our old seedling trays. During the hot weather we've been having it still took about a week for them to dry out. The dried weight was about 100 grams - we do this for love, not money. The whole process has given us a lot more respect for how much good food is really worth - and the end products is delicious. A great addition to our porridge over winter - if they last that long.

After a week or so in the solar dryer we get sultanas, about one fifth of the fresh weight

Comments

Linda said…
Oh wow! I'm so impressed! You are so good at growing things. Your harvests are always amazing! How much time do you spend gardening each week?
March 2, 2013 at 10:59 PM
Richard said…
I have only shown the success stories so far - lots of things have not worked. Like my corn this year - virtually nothing harvested.
I'm not sure how much time I spend in the garden? It varies so much. Heaps this summer watering - nearly every day for up to an hour. I try to do a little bit every day and only have a fairly small area to manage.
March 3, 2013 at 1:44 AM
Gina said…
Hi Richard. Your grape story reminded me of my days in Mexico when I had a small vineyard entirely made up of rare grape varieties. The cuttings had been given to me by my neighbour, whose 60-acre, productive vineyard was being pulled up because he had decided to lease his farm to a carrot farmer.

It was my pride and joy, so you can imagine my amazement when I sold my farm and found the new owner had it destroyed.

Continued success to you!

Gina

March 3, 2013 at 3:46 AM
Gina said…
P.S. Did I thank you for the calendar? I liked the February page with your house on it!
March 3, 2013 at 3:48 AM
Kristy said…
well that's a pretty fabulous harvest especially for such a young vine. It must be very happy indeed :)
March 3, 2013 at 4:14 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crazy paving with urbanite

-
Image
Principle 11: Use edges and value the marginal I collected a large pile of concrete which had been sitting out the front for a number of years. It had become habitat for snails mainly. Originally the concrete blocks were footpaths from around the original house, so they hadn't traveled far. This material is more commonly known as 'urbanite', and is used in some pretty creative ways . I've been thinking about creating a space for an outdoor kitchen for some time now, and figured that I really needed a paved area in between the shed and cellar to set it up. The urbanite seemed like the perfect answer, allowing me to clean up around the front and create a great space round the back. My mate Dylan suggested that I make up a form and mortar mix to set the concrete block pieces onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, so after thinking about it for a few months and with summer just about to start, I decided to get stuck into it. After clearing the space I set up a
Read more

The 'Super Fridge' (upright freezer conversion)

-
Image
Principle 12: Creatively use and respond to change I'm one for trying out different things, and I like to see what we can get away with before committing to something bigger and 'better'. Fridges and freezers are one of the biggest energy consumers in the household - usually behind heating / cooling and hot water systems. Our upright freezer to fridge conversion in action We've trialed a number of fridge systems here before settling on the upright freezer conversion. First we used an old 150lt bar fridge that used around 670Wh per day Then we bought a 150lt chest freezer (using around 466Wh per day) for preserving bulk food - with the idea of a possible conversion. Our bar fridge died two weeks later so we used ice from our freezer to create a 'ice box bar fridge' We then tried a smaller old Engel fridge (about 50lt) that I had in the Kombi that used about 420Wh per day. After not being entirely satisfied with any of the above I finally decided
Read more

Cool cupboard completed

-
Image
Principle 7: Design from patterns to details The cool cupboard project has been a very long one. While it demonstrates most of the permaculture design principles I thought that I'd focus on 'Design from Patterns to Details' because it really was the way in which the project evolved and was finally completed. The design was inspired by the cool cupboard that I saw at Melliodora, the home of David Holmgren and Su Dennett. David includes a section about the design of his cupboard in his eBook about the property. Since then I've seen other designs that use the same principles including a pantry in an old house near Sheparton that had a mesh covered hole in the floor and one that was covered up in the ceiling and 'Adelaide House' in Alice Spings which I visited in 2004 and wrote this short report on for my Permaculture Diploma: My cupboard is based more on David Holmgren's design, with a few differences. It draws air through the cellar (with a water tan
Read more