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Harvest Time!!.......Workshop Gone??


GLPointon

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Every year about this time I transform my workshop into a "summer kitchen" for canning and processing my garden harvest.


This year I added a 2nd propane Stove to help speed up the Canning process. Each canner holds 7 qt. jars and takes 30-40 min per batch so the 2nd stove helped alot.


I also added the Washtub/Sink this year.




Can you believe there is still 4 Tractors in here. 1 is being Resto'd & is in pcs...and the other 3 are hiding under their protective covers (old bedsheets)sm01




Anyway I've got 113 jars of Green Beans, Salsa, Stewed Tomatoes, Chili, Pasta Sauce & Pickles...and many bags of Frozen Corn, Brocoli, Strawberries, Cabbage, Green Peppers, etc... Its all very rewarding ...But... I can't wait to get back to my tractor work...Much more fun!!sm01
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Nice looking operation! My parents 120-150 year old farmhouse had a separate bldg called a summer kitchen. It was supposedly used mostly for this type of thing.
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Greg, Is that your loader tractor under the tarp in the second pic? I thought maybe it was a car or something at first glance, but when I looked closer it looks like it's got AG tires and wheel weights.
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Greg, Get a motor for the squeezo. It makes sauce lots faster then cranking, sorta like putin a motor on an old reel type push mower.
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Yes Rick I know of a few old farmhouses here that still have Summer Kitchens...The old timers knew how to keep all that heat out of the home in the summer sm01 I cant imagine how much harder my A/C would have to work if I put all these hours of Heat & Steam in the house. $$$ plus its better place to make messes.
quote:
Originally posted by rpickle
Nice looking operation! My parents 120-150 year old farmhouse had a separate bldg called a summer kitchen. It was supposedly used mostly for this type of thing.
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Chris that is the AC410/Loader under the pale yellow cover, the 7116 under the dark blue, 7010 the light blue & B210 under the yellow/white cover......and they don't like it :)
quote:
Originally posted by huffy
Greg, Is that your loader tractor under the tarp in the second pic? I thought maybe it was a car or something at first glance, but when I looked closer it looks like it's got AG tires and wheel weights.
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Nice looking crop Greg! Perhaps next year I'll get to tilling up the east opening in the woods. It should be good for veggies (The raspberries love it). I better have the '68 resto done by then! Wayne
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Not quite the scale of your summer kitchen, but I put up a gallon of Pasta Sauce, plus pickles, and have more tomatoes to process. The big harvest is almost upon me, I have about 70 grape vines that are almost ready to harvest and turn into wine. [url][/url]http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s720x720/217918_506204956073192_1014959470_n.jpg
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Bruce thats awsome...I may have some questions for you as this is my first year of harvest for my 3 Grape vines I planted 2 yrs ago. I have 2 "Concord" and 1 "seedless green". I want to put up some concord grape juice and maybe wine in future as my harvest increases sm01
quote:
Originally posted by bnolte
Not quite the scale of your summer kitchen, but I put up a gallon of Pasta Sauce, plus pickles, and have more tomatoes to process. The big harvest is almost upon me, I have about 70 grape vines that are almost ready to harvest and turn into wine. [url][/url]http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s720x720/217918_506204956073192_1014959470_n.jpg
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The harvest has started!! I planted my first grapes here in 2005 and have been making wine with my own grapes since 2008, though I have made wine with locally purchased and grapes brought in from California for many years. It is a fair amount of work to do it right. I harvested 100 pounds of Seyval Blanc, about 35 percent of the crop from 18 vines. I only picked the ripest clusters and have them under refrigeration in a converted freezer until the rest are ready, probably by the end of the week.


The first of the harvest


A makeshift work area in the shade:)
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Should I prune my vine? My green grape vine is going wild. It has sent out at least 30 new vines 10' long in this season. I've been keeping them from crowding the concords farther down the wires but dont know how heavy to prune/trim???
quote:
Originally posted by bnolte
The harvest has started!! I planted my first grapes here in 2005 and have been making wine with my own grapes since 2008, though I have made wine with locally purchased and grapes brought in from California for many years. It is a fair amount of work to do it right. I harvested 100 pounds of Seyval Blanc, about 35 percent of the crop from 18 vines. I only picked the ripest clusters and have them under refrigeration in a converted freezer until the rest are ready, probably by the end of the week.
[img]/club2/attach/bnolte/harvest 2012 startr.jpg[/img]
The first of the harvest
[img]/club2/attach/bnolte/workarear.jpg[/img]
A makeshift work area in the shade:)
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Gary, I had to keep hedging both my Riesling and Seyval grapes (both white wine varieties) multiple times this season. There is a lot of information out on the web about Viticulture practices. I found a couple of good books that bring it down to practical terms. One is "The Backyard Vintner" by Jim Law, another one is "From Vines to Wines", I forgot the author's name and loaned the book out and never got it back. I will contact you off-list for more detailed information.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I like to see this type of stuff... I also have started the canning process as the 7 foot tomato plants are doing well this year. That's a cool kitchen and a good idea :)
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How do you tell what kind of grapes you have? I have some sort of fox grape, concords to my best guess, growing all over the property. Heck I got one vine, about 6" in diameter) that has gone up into a maple tree and it makes apple trees look pathetic.
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Without looking at them, it is hard to tell, but if you live in Maine and they grow wild, that should narrow your search. As far as what I have, my grapes that are primarily for winemaking are all either traditional winemaking varieties grafted onto native American rootstocks, which include my Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon, and hybrids such as Seyval and Chambourcin, grafted onto native American rootstocks. I also have a few table grapes and Concords as well, and as Gary pointed out, they want to take over once they get established.
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  • 3 weeks later...
The summer kitchen has been taken down, but I am still working on the harvest. Brought in pretty much the last of my tomatoes today, I had a whole lot of yellow egg shaped Heirlooms that have seemed to ripen at the same time, plus a crop of Beefsteaks, but only a few Romas, whose vines are pretty much kaput. Usually don't get frost these days til towards the end of October, so I might get a few more, but the cooler weather and fading daylight pretty much slows things to a crawl. Lots of peppers, including a bounty of banana peppers, and Jalapenos, some of which found their way into a new batch of sauce. Out in the garden, I have a row of Broccoli and cabbage planted along the south edge, and a large stretch down the middle was seeded with Barley. From the north edge and about 8 feet in I have a variety of seeds, including beets, spinach, collards, and turnipssm01
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Just tilled my garden under today. All that was left to harvest was the onions, got half a milk grate of them. Tilled around the Kale though, it still tastes good under the snow. Pulled the honey from the bees 2 days ago, still spinning it out, they did good considering the wet cold summer we had til mid July, then it was just cool and dry.
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Sounds like a good harvest guys...dOd I planted very early so I've been done with everything but some later broccoli cuttings and just picked the last apples and grapes (was a small 1st grape harvest)...Oh and I still have potatoes growing in the ground & in barrels. I built a 8X10 greenhouse to try some late veggies or early spring seedlings. I have to study on how best to utilize it...? But I do have my Workshop back again (till next harvest/canning season) sm01
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Yep...I just got the seals & needle bearings for the BGB. Cant wait to get to it. I really wanna use the PS for leaf vac'n season...sm01 [quote]Originally posted by GrincheyOne
Now you can get after that BGB, Greg! Wayne
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