Thursday, June 3, 2010

Yum! Steak!

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Boy do I wish these were ours!





But they are not. They are the neighbor's cattle who keep breaking through the fence.

Go get 'em!





Yeah. They KNOW they are not where they are supposed to be. The mares say, "Good riddance. Better you than us!"





Doyle Thornless getting ready to bury us in berries again.





Last year we had a lot of trouble with grass being stuck all over the berries every time we picked. It really added a lot of time to harvest and processing. This year we've been practicing mowing and making sure everything gets tossed in the opposite direction. I haven't figured it out on the grape side, but Michael has.





The black rot has got me trembling again. I'm about ready to take them out and replace them with Mars vines. Those are a type of blue seedless that are resistant to black rot. I'm looking into it now.





What ARE these?





And these are either Nanking or Hansen's bush cherries. I'm not sure which, but they are ripe and they are good to eat!





Just haven't decided what to do with them yet.

~Faith

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4 comments:

  1. here's a good grape variety chart in PDF:
    http://www.rakgrape.com/pdf_files/2009-2010-VineVariety.pdf

    its from Double A Vineyards
    i found it very useful for deciding which types to dry. They have the resistance level to a a few common diseases marked along with hardiness, vigor, season and use.
    I find charts easier to understand than the information paragraph in catalogs. :o) So i hope you find it helpful too!

    If you are considering pulling all your current vines up and replacing them, that Vineyard seems to have decent prices.

    I don't remember if i saw you mention what types of grapes you have been trying to grow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Icebear,

    Thanks! I did some digging on that site and found the catalog, which has the same chart, only even more varieties on it. The Mars was not on the first chart, but it is on the one in this catalog.

    It would cost me 200 dollars to put two grapes in each row. That won't happen for quite some time.

    I also want to spend more time looking for others that are as resistant as Mars. It would be nice to have a few different ones, so they don't all ripen at once.

    I will try to find my planting chart and share what varieties are out there.

    ~Faith

    ReplyDelete
  3. yum on the cherries! What are you going to do with them? And on the plums are you talking about the holes in the leaves or the brown looking stuff on the fruit?

    ReplyDelete
  4. SM,

    The best thing to do with these, after eating them fresh, is make wine, jam or jelly.

    They are super good fresh, but we were not impressed with the juice. I don't drink, and we don't eat very much jam or jelly at all.

    So I gave them to friends, and they made jelly. Now I'm sorry I didn't. LOL Not really, but it is very delicious jelly. They gave us a jar.

    We've got more coming, so I might make a jar or two. Small batches might be used up. A cherry syrup would be really nice as well, for ices or pancakes...

    It's the fruit. I'm just not sure yet what type of fruit those things are. We've never harvested from them as they are in a frost pocket. I thought I had planted cherries all those years ago, but I'm not so sure anymore.

    ~Faith

    ReplyDelete

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