I've been so pre-occupied with the construction projects lately that I hardly noticed that the muscadine grapevines had a late round of grapes that had matured. Yeah, it was almost a gallon of them! You could even smell their sweetness as you walked by...Later that evening, I went ahead and juiced them, and got at least 16 oz. of crystal clear, purple colored juice from them (the rest was foamy looking stuff). I'd love to make some jelly with it, but don't know if it's enough juice for a batch. Only one way to find out, I guess...Maybe a 1/2 batch? It's in the fridge now, and will be turned into something this weekend. Yeehaw!
Photo below - here's a shot of everything being grown right now. There's carrots and japanese maple tree transplants in the forefront, and of course lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and broccoli in the background. I figure the lettuce will be coming in hard just before thanksgiving, and of course the broccoli about 2-3 weeks after that. The carrots will be left for about 5-6 months - in hopes that they'll actually get some size on them.
Photo below - I just had to take a picture of my "October Glory" Red Maple that was planted about 5 years ago. It's really grown over time, and someday will be towering over everything in the yard.
Photo below - Ok, so I had this battery charger that was giving me fits......It was one of those kinds that would shut off automatically once the battery had been fully charged, but wouldn't work at all sometimes. Yeah, it had all kinds of electronics on it - which apparently were on the blink. Well, I showed it! Using the transformer in it, I decided to modify it just a bit.... I connected a 2 ohm, 20 watt resistor in series with one side of the transformer secondary, then hooked it to a full wave bridge rectifier. Now I have a 2 amp trickle charger that works every single time I need it. It'll be assembled inside the original case once more, so that it will be presentable and easy to carry around. That just goes to show that sometines technology isn't the best way to go.
Photo below - Here's 4 of my wheelchair batteries connected in parallel - that will be used to run the greenhouse, of course. Talk about a mobile power supply! These babies should be able to control the greenhouse temperature for at least a week at a time.
Speaking of the greenhouse, i'm still having trouble with the motor part....Right now, a drill motor is installed on it - but it goes way too fast! I'll have to build something to control the speed, and have been removing electronic components from the various circuit boards laying around to be turned into something for it soon. Most electrical projects don't require any outside information, but this one will cause me to do some research....Oh well, it's good to learn something new!
In other news, my Auburn Tigers are ranked #1 in the country! (but history shows that it might be short-lived!) Hehe....That's ok, I still love my team, whether winning or losing....
The bags of curbside leaves are slowly trickling in, and I brought home 4 on Wednesday. At least 50-60 will be needed for a good composting cycle, and i'll continue to scour the neighborhoods during my lunch break at work. After the bad storms this week, i'm sure several will find their way to the curb over the weekend - so Monday should be a great day for "foliage robbery"! Hehe...On Thursday, I picked up 3 really large bags of grass clippings, and will spread them out in the yard to dry out a bit (otherwise, they'll clump together). This is gonna be a really big composting cycle, and thankfully there's plenty of room to store as many bags of leaves as I want on the property - and also that I have a really big truck!
Take care, and happy gardening!
EG
15 comments:
haha! Our foliage robbery season won't start for another couple of weeks, November is historically the season opener LOL!
Those grapes are beautiful! 16 oz of juice is the correct amount for 1/2 batch of jelly. Yum!!
Your garden looks nice and tidy. Keep up the good work. I really love reading your blog :)
Congrats on the late grape harvest. The recipes at allrecipes.com can be adjusted by servings. For example, I changed this Grape Jelly recipe to 32 servings and the ingredients adjusted to 2 cups of grape juice.
The grapes look good! Around here they let some varieties freeze on the vine for ice wine. The freezing concentrates the juice making them very concentrated. I bet they would be good in jelly too.
Erin - I'm getting a few bags of leaves already, but nothing compared to what's coming. Yeehaw!
Robin - Thank you! I'll try a 1/2 batch of jelly this weekend.
Grafixmuse - thank you. I'll check that link out, and will make some this weekend.
Dan - really? that's weird...oh well, if it works.......
We are looking to add a few more grapes so I looked up your muscadine variety, they sound like an excellent juice or wine grape but might not be able to handle our zone....I'll have to look into them some more.
Being able to control the temperature of your greenhouse for a week at a time off of batteries is a pretty neat trick. I'm looking forward to hearing about how you perfect the motor speed.
Well, I'm off to do a project of my own today...my darned Nesco food dehydrator broke and I need to make a new dehydrator fast. No more Nescos for me...it's the third one in 4 years. Wish me luck, my brain doesn't work as good as yours when it comes to this stuff.:)
he he... I can see you now in a cape and black bandit eye thingies... in the dark of night running up to the curb and snatching bags of soon to be compost goodies.... lol!
One of the towns not far from here has a compost and yard refuse area where people can dump grass clippings, leaves, and twigs. They even have a big compost pile that you can help yourself to! I think that is so awesome!
I read your blog via RSS; just wanted to pop in and say "hey, love the blog!" Be well...
They do ice wine here too, it is so sweet!
A half-batch of jelly sounds like just the thing, certainly way better than no-batch. :)
I've never had a muscadine before. Can you eat them skin and all or are they best for just juicing?
Thomas - Sure, you can eat them skin and all - or at least I do...
ok....so I'm a lurker, not a commenter (or encourager ;0
I've enjoyed your building projects and marvel at them, as I tend to take the path of least resistance -- buy something already made or do without ;(
Anyway, I watched a Netflix movie the other night that reminded me of you and all the other engineers....who get little/no glory for their efforts. You may have heard about or seen it already -- it's called "Flash of Genius," about the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper. While the story is mostly about his struggle with the justice system and big business regarding his patent, it is a good movie altogether.
BTW, no gardening for the next few months here in MT, so my attention is drawn indoors ;)
Sharon - Hi there! Thanks for the compliment and leaving a comment for me! I'm really glad you like my building projects, and there's more to come pretty soon. Please stop by again!
Those grapes look awesome. I always get a good chuckle when I read about people collecting bags of leaves. My property sits right next to the forest, so I have more leaves than I could possibly use.
EG, "thanks for posting this"
OK. OK. I couldn't resist. You know that I appreciate your blog. I have learned so much and I enjoy reading about your inventions. You remind me of my grandfather. He loved to garden and he was ALWAYS making something. He only had an elementary education but he loved to TINKER. He made some fun things for us kids.
Thank you! Keep up the good work.
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