Making Grape Juice

In my school garden, we have an extremely vigorous grape vine. It is practically covering the fence from one side of the property to the other; it’s beautiful in three seasons, producing nice flowers in spring, prolific fruit and green leaves in summer, and flaming red leaves in fall. My guess is that this variety is ‘Roger’s Red,’ which is a hybrid of our native California grape. The fruit is tasty, although quite seedy.

This year, the grape grew to gigantic proportions, produced an incredible amount of fruit, and has made the wildlife around the Environmental Center very happy (we have a turkey family nibbling the fruit each day, and the human wildlife is also happy taking home bunches of fruit after class). My co-worker decided that we needed to harvest as much fruit as possible and give the vine a good pruning, which it likely hasn’t had in 30 years. So, our student gardener has taken on that project, and the other day harvested two enormous buckets of grapes.

I decided to bring the grapes home and see if I could make some decent juice from them. I didn’t have high hopes for this project because the grapes are really small, the size of blueberries (small ones, not those giant inflated ones you find in big supermarkets), and they are nearly all seed. I was sure they wouldn’t yield much juice.

I looked up how to make grape juice in my trusty Ball Blue Book, and that advised washing the grapes, then crushing them, then heating the juice on the stove. This seemed backward to me. (Not the washing part; of course that should come first.) I thought about how to crush them; I had no interest in stomping them with my feet. I decided I would take the grapes off the stems, then heat them gently in my big Dutch oven on the stovetop, adding a little bit of sugar (no need to measure because I’m not water-bath or pressure canning this juice) and waiting until it dissolved and the grapes were nice and warm. Then I would put them through my food mill to remove the skins and seeds.

Well, taking the grapes off the stems took an hour in itself, and I only did a about a quarter of the grapes in the buckets before I decided I’d had enough of that. Heating them was interesting because they immediately started to release juice. Putting them through the mill was straightforward, though it took a bit of muscle because of those large seeds. The primary problem was the MESS. Purple juice everywhere! (I was glad I thought ahead and put on some old clothes.) Purple pulp everywhere!

But the smell, oh my heavens, the smell. I haven’t had grape juice since I was a child, and I found myself wondering why. Probably because the stuff in the store is too sweet and barely juice at all. But this! This smelled like the best fruit orchard in the world, rich and deep and sweet, and the color of the juice! It’s the most gorgeous deep dark red, like a jewel.

Tom and I had a little at dinnertime, and whoa - it is really amazing. Intense, aromatic, delicious, pungent, sweet - you can taste the antioxidants and vitamins! You don’t need more than a a quarter cup - it’s super concentrated!

This quart of juice came from probably only 1-2 pounds of grapes, yielding far more juice than I expected from these small fruits. I have a lot left to process, and am trying to convince myself to make jelly. When’s the last time you had grape jelly? When’s the last time you had HOMEMADE grape jelly??? (I don’t think I ever have.) I mean, it’s got to be delicious, right?

But the clean up…. I’m not sure I can bring myself to go through this process again. The pulp and seeds were easily disposed of (I took it to the chickens, who were very interested), but I had to be very careful not to accidentally put any of those seeds down the garbage disposal (they are the size of popcorn kernels!). I ended up rinsing all my equipment outside with the garden hose before bringing it back inside to wash properly. My counters were a mess, my sink looked like something had died, and my hands were completely stained.

But this stuff is so darn tasty, I might have to just go for it. The time, effort, and mess are the trade-off for an unexpected homemade treat from a successful garden crop.

Orchard Update

I thought you’d like to see what the orchard is looking like these days. We planted these bare-root trees on February 20th, and this area was looking quite bleak, with just (what looked like) sticks in the ground. Thanks to all the rain this winter, and the good rich soil we have provided, the trees are positively bursting with leaves and vitality. I don’t expect to get any fruit this year at all, but that’s ok - we actually want the roots to establish well this first year, and then next year, hopefully we’ll start seeing some harvests.

Tom and I both consider this project a great success. We can already see how, as these trees grow, they will provide a nice shade cover on this side of the garden, which is very hot in the summer. It’s going to be a lovely place to sit and enjoy. I am not doing any pruning at all until winter, and even then it will probably be fairly light. I will do a larger pruning next summer to control for size.

Catching Up

I’ve been laid up. I had knee replacement surgery on May 19th, and was ordered to keep my foot 18” above my heart as much as possible. Other than Tom taking me out for ‘airings’ (that’s me, well-wrapped up and happy watching the shorebirds at Pt. Pinole while Tom had a long walk), completing my daily range-of-motion exercises, and doing some rudimentary gardening, I’ve been following doctor’s orders. I’m starting to feel better, and am hoping that I will be cleared for some walking at my next PT appointment.

I don’t know if it was entirely allowed (don’t tell my PT), but I did harvest the garlic and shallots at the beginning of the month. Tom hung the garlic in the garage (our usual method), and spread the shallots on the front porch bench to dry. It’s imperative, if you want alliums to last a long time, to get them as dry as possible (“cured”) before hanging them inside the house. I expect they’ll be ready for braiding by the end of this month.

This past winter, we dug up the hops that we used to grow every year in large containers on our back patio, and donated them to my school garden, where they are happily growing up the side of a shipping container. To replace those, I ordered four new clematis vines from Brushwood Nursery, which Tom planted while I was in Georgia. They’ve begun blooming, and every day I spend a few minutes just admiring them. One is yet to open (‘Emilia Plater’), but the other three are so lovely.

‘Arabella’

‘Blue Angel’

‘Black Prince’

We have a family of Cooper’s Hawks in the neighborhood, which are keeping me entertained while I’m resting on the back patio. I’ve also delighted in watching the lizards hunting honeybees below the hive, and swallowtail butterflies foraging in the pollinator gardens. It’s been quite nice to have some time to just sit still and watch, even though my knee aches while I sit there.

All the orchard trees have survived and are thriving. Recently, the persimmon bloomed. We’ve had some windy days and some of the blossoms have blown off. I collected them and arranged them on a table, because they are so beautifully wing-shaped (photo above). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a persimmon blooming before.

Rin drove me to the garden center (Rin is walking and driving again!) so I could get some bedding plants to refresh some containers. I keep trying different things in the pallet planter, which is in a very hot and dry spot. Nothing ever lasts long. I’ve decided to try portulaca (moss rose) this summer and I hope it survives. I’ve made some pretty groupings of pots in different parts of the yard, and I must say they look really nice. These are the sorts of things I haven’t had time for, since I’ve been teaching. It feels good to spend time in the garden and spread some love. The blueberries and raspberries are coming in, and soon we’ll have tomatoes and peppers and beans and cucumbers!

The Orchard Project, Part Four

We’ve finally been able to complete the project. With one atmospheric river after another (we’ve had THIRTEEN now), it has been hard to find time to dig holes for the fence posts, move the fencing, and make the gate. But we got a few (very welcome) dry days that allowed us to get those things done. Tom built a marvelous gate which works beautifully, and since Adam is home for spring break, he was able to help us stretch the fencing. The chickens have a slightly different-shaped run, and the gate is much easier to use for us humans.

The almond tree was the first to leaf out, but a nectarine and a plum were first to bloom. Now all of the trees have both leaf and flower buds, and we look forward to sharing what this area looks like once all the trees are in full leaf. They are very small, but I anticipate that they will grow quite fast!

Traverso Tree Company dropped a load of wood chips off in our driveway last week (about 20 cubic yards), and it was great to get this whole area covered. These chips will help suppress any germinating weeds, hold moisture in the soil, prevent erosion, promote mycorrhizae and feed all the wee beasties that live underground.

We also covered all the soil in the chicken run with chips. I do this periodically to help soak up all of the nitrogen being produced by their excrement. It also helps prevent the chickens from standing in mud. And trust me when I say, this winter, there is so much mud.

I’ll probably plant some bulbs under these trees in the fall, just to add some winter and spring color here when the trees are bare, or maybe I’ll plant some comfrey or borage. It’s possible that some annual wildflowers will also seed themselves around. But I won’t make any elaborate plans, I don’t think. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to a lower-maintenance part of the garden! And I’m really going to enjoy watching the orchard grow and mature, knowing that it will provide delicious food for us (and for whoever lives here in the future) in the years to come.

The Orchard Project, Part Three

Our bare-root trees arrived while we were driving home from Georgia. As you know, I have been in Georgia caring for our youngest child since January 9th, when they were hit by a pickup truck while crossing the street at college. Rin is doing really well, and we are very glad to be continuing the recuperation here at home. I had to take a leave of absence from work, so now that I’m back, I have only two jobs until June: One, take care of Rin, and two, take care of the garden. I’m going to enjoy both of these things!

Tom flew to Georgia to do the drive home with us, so the wonderful friend caring for our house and animals had to deal with the trees when they arrived. She opened the box and put the trees into buckets of water, and they spent two days soaking in the garage. We arrived home Friday night, and it’s taken us some time to get adjusted to being back, but this morning I knew I had to get the trees in before the next cold snap.

The beautiful thing about planting these trees into the old raised beds is that the soil has been amended a million times and it’s lovely. Digging holes for the trees was easy and fun. I added some low-nutrient organic fertilizer to each hole, tamped the trees in well, and watered thoroughly.

Next, we need some mulch. I just put in a request for free wood chips from Traverso Tree Service, my favored company. Hopefully those will come soon and I can get this whole area covered. Ideally Tom will finish up the new chicken fence and gate before then. He spent some time getting another post in this morning; digging in the places that haven’t been amended is a true hardship with our heavy clay. Since we’ve had so much rain and cold weather this winter (and considering the accident and my absence), we’ve not been on top of this as we would have liked. It feels good to be back working in the yard.

None of these trees will bear much for the first few years, but it will be fun to see how they grow. The company already ‘topped’ them, so I’ll leave them to do their thing this first year, and possibly do some light pruning next year.