In our region we grow lots of different vine grapes and make lots of different wines. But we like to separete our wine in 2 categories.
Everyday wine and special occasion wine.
The special occasion (party) wine is “high” quality, srtong, sweet, aromatic and full of crap. Sulfur, petrocheemical concuctions, floculants, artificialy breed yeasts and so on. In short, the botles people round the world buy for insane amounts of money. At least 11%alc.
The everyday wine is simple. Consists of 3 vorietys. Jurka, šmarnica, clinton. Didnt find english names, but jurka is for the aroma, šmarnica for presevance, clinton for colour. Thats it. NO sulfates, bentonite, floculantes, yeasts and other crap. Pick. Press. Barrel. Ferment. Drink. Natural. 7-10% alohol. We usualy drink a 50/50 mix of this wine and mineral water. A rehidrarive and relaxable drink, weaker thein beer, fullof vitamines and minerales. The grapes do not require any chemical treatment and are frost hardy.
They are the only ones l do and ever will grow. Share the wine ONLY with family and friends. Everyone else get the crap describet earlyer. High quality, high price and always on stock, but you can feel there is no love in it.
I envy any of you guys who can grow fruit. We’re stuck between two zones so we usually bloom and frost out. Stuck with figs, black berries and blue berries, muscadines, and scupernongs, We did get a few mulberries this year…appreciate it if you have it…
I’m sorry but I’m a complete noivice when it comes to gardening and I know no grapes by name… It’s wife’s department. I do potatoes, carrots and peas. They don’t require much skill. I’m involved in harvesting though, mostly because I’m the one who can’t stand anything go to waste.
Picking the wrong variety of grapes (or any fruit tree) not suited to the local minimum temperatures is a practical guarantee for disappointment. There are nuances, such as length of growing season, etc that will alter results of varieties technically rated for a certain climate zone, but generally it is winter kill or winter hardiness that governs success or failure in horticulture. Beta and Valiant are known as the hardiest improved grape varieties, originating in breeding programs in Minnesota and North Dakota if memory serves, selected crosses with wild North American grapes.
It might be that if wild grapes won’t survive in your area, neither will the cultivars. Wild grapes are a bit of an exotic here, found in river valleys in the south, although with the global warming of recent decades, perhaps local vegetation is no longer a reliable indication.
At least start with reliable stock. Both those varieties are old and common horticulture stock, widely available here for about $10. Once established they are easily propagated from dormant stem cuttings.
I have a feeling from observing your videos that grapes should be possible in your area, especially with the milder winter temperatures. I’m not as certain that there is enough summer heat for them to reliably bear fruit, but it’s a cheap experiment, and grapes grow quickly.
Even without the grapes you would have leaves to eat or pickle…
Wow, never really get to see the flowers. Down here they get cut off before they go to seed. That reminds me, I should grow some tobacco again. We used to grow it to make pesticides. Then somebody figured out there were better solutions. I tried growing my own to smoke and chew years ago, but never could make it taste like a Marlboro or Skoal. haha…Thank God that’s over…Been tobacco free for 10 years next month.
Good for you being tobacco free that long, me too. Ironic that I keep growing it, but like Kristijan I have pesticide in mind, plus other people’s needs.
Tobacco does have beautiful flowers. But for outstanding scented flowers grow jasmine tobacco, amongst my favourite flowers.
To be honest, l had to look nicotine sulfate up the net. Says its quite stright forward, boil the leaves with some batery acid (sulfiric).
But l see no need for that. Alcaloides (nicotine, cocaine, atropine, …) are usualy transfered to salts for easyer extraction/solubility in water & purification. No need for that in a garden.
I just boil the leaves and spray plants with the tea. Some just use powdered dry leaves as a dry dust pesticide. Its extremely effective against plant mites, and goid for most pests. actualy l just boiled a batch for my cabbage. It got a catterpilar atack.
Its allso quite long lasting.
Some put tabbaco in the soil. Shuld repell moles and mice, and yelow potato worms. But l am not for that. The soil needs worms and bugs to work.
My understanding is that nicotine sulfate is far more lethal an insecticide, but potentially dangerous to the careless, can be toxic to people via skin contact. I agree that nicotine made into a tea is easily sprayed and toxic to nsects. To make it more effective a soap of some sort should be added to break down the water repellence natural in insects, then the toxin absorbs.
Sage family members are also toxic to insects, as evidenced by the fact that the plants never have insect damage. I believe in synergistic effects, so like to combine buffalo sage with nicotine and dish soap as an insecticide, seems to be fairly effective.
Its a total peaticide. Althugh with right use l am sure it shuld be of no harm. Avoyd spraying flowers, use low concentrations only on pests directly (spray directly on caterpilars/mites) a day before rain or wash the plants once the pests die.
The 105mm restriction occadionaly gave me sticky throtle. Made a 95mm insert, power good, no more tar.
But, a nother problem showed up. We are close to 40c (120f) outside, feels like a desert, and the gas is comeing out of the system wery hot and moist, lean. We all know that this promotes a driver to press the gas pedal harder makeing things worse. Yes, the cooler is on the small side and its not up to such extreme temps. Allso, the hot gas makes the plastic filter soft and vacuum sucks it together. What to do?
I was thinking to throw out the filter barrel, put in a metalic one (althugh geting one is a nother story) and 2 cyclones with fins. Shuld gain a lot of cooler area.
Might try Matts cool gas cyclone filtration…
It is tough to get enough cooling when you have to hide everything in a box like you do.
On my new build The gas will be going through a cyclone before going through this heat exchanger.
Sorry Kristijan, can’t give much advice when it comes to extreme heat
Well, the truth is I had to reinforce my plastic hay filter as well.
I even changed out a couple pipes from plastic to metal the other day. The ones going down to the filter barrel. Gives me a few feet of extra cooling.
