A Bountiful Summer

[Rhukath]

Well what a fantastic summer around here for wine makers. The hedgerows have been fit to bursting with all sorts of fruit (blackberries, Sloe's, Apple, Plums, Elderberries, Rose-hips).

I of course have taken every opportunity during this summer to do a bit of foraging and currently have several batches of wine on the go. I have tried to do a bit of mixing and matching to see what works well.

As of this moment the list involves the following:

Plum and Elderberry
Apple and Elderberry
Apple and Blackberry
Plum
Rose-hip
Pear

Hopefully I will be adding more apple wine and maybe a bit of Sloe wine too. Currently the total of my wine making will equal somewhere in the region of 60 bottles of wine, plenty for giving as presents to family and friends with enough left over.

I've also used some fruit for making jam, and have started making winter pickles for Christmas.

The only problem is finding enough time to tend everything :?

Rhukath

 

[Deltabrew]

I found exactly the opposite, the apple tree which was laden down last year had barely anything on it this year. The few that were on seemed to have vanished too, either eaten by birds or fallen off into the undergrowth.
I did some research and apparently if it has a heavy crop it will be followed by 'not much' the next year, you have to balance it out by taking half of the buds off in the Spring of the good year.

So i'm making Turbo Cider instead. :)

 

[Rhukath]

I must admit that is something that I wasn't aware of. I've been lucky that there are lots of apple tree's in my area and I have a number of people who allow me to take apples from their trees because they don't really use them. I am planning to plant a self seeding apple tree in the garden sometime but that won't be till at least next spring now.

I do have a couple of brambles growing in the garden that (unbeknown to the wife) I am cultivating in the hope I can move them and replant them in a more convenient spot so that we can have some of our own home grown brambles next year :)

Rhukath