Homemade wine. Made from our own grown, fresh, organic fruit. No sulfites. We have made a lot of loquat wine, so recently thought we would try blueberries.
It takes about 3 weeks for the sugar to get gobbled up by the yeast. We were shooting for a very dry but full-bodied wine. Cabernet. So far so good. It’s 3 weeks old, and we’ll let it age another 6 weeks…maybe.
Jeremiah was a bullfrog,
was a good friend of mine.
I never understood a single word he said,
but I helped him drink his wine.
(And he always had some mighty fine wine.)
Lyrics from “Joy to the World” by Hoyt Axton; performed by Three Dog Night”; released February 1971
Well, the obvious answer when you are new to paw paw growing is to ask someone who has grown them before! Enter the Pinterest search. There is a lot of information out there about the paw paw. It was both abundant and popular back in the day, with Native Americans, colonists, and European explorers.
Pickin’ up paw paws,
Put ’em in your pocket
Pickin’ up paw paws
Put ’em in your pocket
Pickin’ up paw paws, Put ’em in your pocket
Way down yonder in the paw paw patch.
Actually a tropical fruit, it has self-adapted to the more temperate climates of some of the Northern states. It grows wild in 26 states.
We’re excited, because we have at least a dozen wild paw paw trees and they are all full of fruit. They will make a wonderful addition to our fruit smoothie. Apparently you have to be there when the fruit gets ripe, ’cause if it falls off you’ll lose it. This could get tricky.
Turns out that paw paws start off with hard shells like they are now. When they are ripe, the skin softens a bit, like a pear. We’re keeping a close eye. Wish us luck.
So the answer to the original burning question, “How do you know when a paw paw is ripe?” is that someone else can give you hints (“the skin softens, like a pear”), but you’ll never know if the paw paw is ripe until you experience it yourself. Lived experience, the only real way to learn.
I think we finally have a handle on this year’s crop of strawberries. Notice I say this year’s because after these are finished, we will start again with something else and save the space for strawberries every second or third year…crop rotation very important. Can’t figure out how we’re going to rotate the electric fence!
Starting Strawberries Sept 2016 – We had Festival last year, but got very poor yield and the berries that don’t ripen to the top. Can you picture it?
Strawberries Oct 2016 -The order got mixed up and they were delivered a month early! None of those plants grew after being stored in the fridge for a month. Strawberries – 3rd Time’s a Charm – Third batch had no leaves, but they were Sweet Charlies so should be okay. Nothing. It Worked Strawberries Nov 2016 – finally we got strawberries. We figure they cost about a dollar a piece…
