Grapes and vineyards

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Grapes and vineyards seem to be a new way to add cash to your homestead, anyone haye any ideas, comments, or suggestions on how to go about doing this? We have a small grape arbor and are just starting to get grapes. What do you do with them, how do you remove the seeds for making juice and jam. thanks. we live in an Oak/savannah type of area with sandyloam soil. do you have to spray grapes? any help would be appreciated.

-- Joany Hoffman (mjjch@uniontel.net), March 27, 2002

Answers

We have decades old concord vines that came with our farm. We do have to spray them if you want any grapes. I usually use Bordeaux (sp?) spray which I think is copper sulfate and some lime. As for getting the seeds out, several of the companies that make food mills (the type that take the skin, core and seeds out of tomatos) also make special "grape spirals" (the screw mechanism) and grape screens that remove the skins and seeds. We also have a steam juicer in which you place about a 2 gallon pail of grapes (stems and all) and then put some water in the lower part. The steam breaks down the grapes and the juice runs out a collection tube into a container. After a certain amount of time all that is left are stems, seeds, and skin. This method adds a little bit of water to the juice since the condensing steam is collected with the juice. In our case we still added a little extra water to the juice along with some sugar before we canned the juice.

-Mark Lewis Franksville, Wisconsin

-- Mark Lewis (mark53126@yahoo.com), March 28, 2002.


Last summer I bought a steam juicer made by the Back to Basics company (they were sold at our local King's store) I bought it to make grape juice, but the instructions say there are many other juices you can make too. I did make grape juice and it was a simple process. No straining, etc. My whole family likes the taste of the juice. My advice- DONT let the bottom part run out of water!! I did first batch, and the aluminum got so hot that it cracked and I had to order a new bottom part from the company! The grapes I juiced were from my grandma's yard and she hasn't done a thing to her vine in years, no pruning, spraying, etc. It still had a lot of grapes! I wonder if you can buy vines that can thrive with low maintenance and no spraying. She has had that grape so long she doesn't remember what kind it is. Oh, one more thing, if you use the steam juicer, the juice comes out so hot, you can put it directly into a sterilized jar and screw a canning lid and ring on it. All mine sealed with in a few minutes. No hot water bath! I plan to try out more things this summer.

-- Sariah Pearson (joelsariah@hotmail.com), March 31, 2002.

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