Packing the Greenhouse

Winter approaches, and once again everything must come inside or get left behind. This year, we say goodbye to Plumeria pudica. The plant makes very fragrant white flowers, but it refuses to solidly root in the pot and as a result it constantly tips over and grow awkwardly. We made some interesting plumeria wine from its flowers but said wine ruined us on Traminette. So long, P. pudica.

We also bid adieu to Psidium myrtoides, purple guava. I grew two trees from seeds brought from Puerto Rico. I managed with great difficulty to prune and stake these into a tree-like form, and they got to around 5 feet. But theses trees also refused to firmly root in the pot and required constant staking. Worse, the marble-sized fruit were not worthy of wine or anything else. The smell reminded me of something between motor oil and skunk, and they taste was bitter. 

Some of the plants in the south window did not handle the transition well. The loquat and one of the sapodillas will lose some leaves. I walked in Thursday morning to find one contributing cause - no heat. It was 46F inside. I didn't have time to troubleshoot until Saturday, and finally found the culprits.

A replacement thermocouple

What you can find on Amazon for $9 is $36 at the local hardware store. I coughed up the money for the only one in stock, and I had the north furnace going in about 10 minutes. The second one is coming from Amazon in a week, we'll get by until then with one furnace.

There were a couple of nice fruit this week. We brought home the largest guava to date, this one nearly baseball sized. Noel's Big Red sugar apple was sweet and tasty, even if small and seedy.

A tour:

Restful Weekends

The harvest is over. I have fruit in the freezer for a few more wines - passion fruit, acerola, pawpaw, jaboticaba - but these will be small, mostly one gallon batches. We're going to let it cool off a bit more before kicking those wines off.

The Foch and Frontenac are holding their color so far and tasting very good if not almost a little bit too fruit forward. I was concerned about the acid, but the malolactic finished in record time and the pH readings look decent at 3.57-3.60. They've received their KMS doses with 100% adjustments. I have two 5-gallon barrels on the way for aging this wine. Hopefully this will concentrate them and add some complexity.

There is significant amount of crown gall in the vineyard, affecting mainly the Chambourcin and particularly the Norton. I'm seriously considering removing all but 1/2 row of Norton and replanting Arandell and Petite Pearl. The Missouri State Grape has proven very disappointing.

We didn't aggressively pursue the pawpaws this year, instead leaving some for the critters. But Garry texted me looking for some ingredients for specials, and we sent him some pawpaws, lemongrass, and guava. We could not resist going to Bek's to see what Danny did with them, and we were not disappointed.

Pork chop and apple fritter with pawpaw rum sauce

Wahoo with lemongrass and guava gastrique

And we'll leave you with this guy, who's been hanging around the yard for a few weeks. I wonder if he isn't responsible for some of the grape losses, he looks pretty fat and happy.