Between A Pot And A Cold Place: When to transplant tomatoes outdoors

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I’m making tomato wine this year, and for me that starts with growing tomatoes from seed. I transplant them into the garden when it gets warm enough, meaning overnight lows of 50 Fahrenheit or higher. The latest forecast is for lows in the mid 40’s for the next 10 days, though, so I should delay transplanting them because it’s still too cold.

The Gold Nuggets of my future tomato vineyard are getting crowded in their pots - 5/10/07

The photo above shows my Gold Nugget tomatoes on 5/10/07, and as you can see they are getting crowded in their pots. They need to go somewhere else soon, either the garden or other pots. No matter how carefully it’s done, digging up the plant and relocating it delivers a shock that temporarily stunts the plant’s growth. Repotting them would mean delivering this shock twice in a short time, once when I move them to new pots and again when I move them to the garden. So I should transplant into the garden right away to avoid this.

I’m not sure how I’ll resolve this dilemma yet.



Swenson Red Needs To Be Cane Pruned

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In yesterday’s article about pruning, I mentioned that I pruned to spurs on a vertical cordon. That means the trunk is permanent and I maintain short branches of one year old wood, called spurs, that come out of the trunk. If those one year old branches were long, a dozen buds or more, they would be called canes. Canes would make repotting the vines more tedious and would require more support. That’s why I decided to spur prune.

It turns out that some varietals need to be pruned to canes in order to bear fruit. In those varietals, the buds closest to the trunk are not fruitful. If you spur prune them, you’ll get lovely foliage but no grapes. That’s what happened to my Swenson Red last year, and may happen again this year. I pruned in March, and had a vague idea that I should be less aggressive, but I didn’t really know what went wrong or how to fix it. When I prune for next season, I’ll know what to do, but this season, I’ve got longish spurs that aren’t quite canes.



Pruning My Grape Vines

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Grape vines need annual pruning. Because I grow mine in pots, they also need annual root trimming. I’m still getting the hang of this, but my current thinking is to train my grape vines to a vertical cordon. The single permanent trunk with fruiting spurs (short one year old branches) will be compact and easy to remove for root trimming. It won’t need much more than a stake for support either.

Siegerrebe grape vine after pruning and before root trimming on March 28, 2007

The photo above shows a Siegerrebe grape vine after I pruned it and just before root trimming. That was on March 28, 2007. You can see two spurs, well they maybe a bit large for spurs, and I’m expecting a small crop on them this year.

Trimming the roots of a Siegerrebe grape vine on March 28, 2007

I’m trimming the roots in the above photo. My goal is to keep the whole root structure small enough to fit in the pot. I’m also trying to keep the root mass as productive as possible. The roots of any plant, including grape vines, are mostly structural. It’s only the fine tip that is actually collecting water and nutrients for the plant. When I trim the roots then, I’m looking to get rid of the big woody roots and leave a mass of small feeder roots.

Siegerrebe grape vine on March 28, 2007 after pruning and root trim

This is what it looks like when all is said and done. Now it’s ready to go back in the pot and make me some grapes!

Measuring Sulfite

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The Right Way

Potassium metabisulfite and sodium metabisulfite, both are often just referred to as “sulfite”, can protect wine against oxidation and unwanted microorganisms. Like many topics in winemaking, determining the correct dosage of sulfite for a given wine or must can get complicated. The fastidious winemaker will first determine how much free sulfer dioxide (SO2) is already present. Next, because sulfite is more effective at low pH and less effective at high pH, he will measure the pH to determine how much free SO2 is needed. Finally, he will carefully measure this amount and add it to his wine or must.

The Easy Way

This can be overwhelming to home winemakers, and they have long used rules of thumb and premeasured doses to get a handle on sulfite. The practice of adding sulfite to 50 ppm initially and then at every other racking can be good enough. This eliminates the task of measuring free SO2 and determining the correct dosage of SO2. A quarter teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite powder added to 5 gallons is about right for this procedure, but measuring out the small quantities required for a 1-gallon batch is tedious and requires an accurate gram scale.

Campden tablets are premeasured doses that solve this problem. For one gallon batches, the rule becomes one campden tablet initially and then one at every other racking. Campden tablets have always frustrated me, though, because they never completely dissolve. So I dissolve a quarter teaspoon of sulfite powder into five teaspoons of warm water. I have no trouble getting the powdered form to dissolve and whenever I need sulfite for one gallon, I measure out one teaspoon of this sulfite solution. Obviously this isn’t precise, it’s sufficient and it takes some of the tedium out.

Sanitizing with Sulfite

You can sanitize your winemaking equipment with sulfite, but it takes a different approach. To be effecitve, the sulfite must have a higher concentration and be combined with acid. Have a look at this article for details on making a DIY Sanitizer from sulfite and citric acid.

A Simple Mead Recipe: Care and feeding of your yeast

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Here’s a photo of the fermenting mead that I wrote about yesterday (and started the day before on 5/5/07).

After two days, the mead is translucent and small clumps of foam dot the surface

The yeast will do their work without much attention from me, but a daily stir can help. I sanitize a long stainless steel spoon by immersion in boiling water, dip it in cold water so it doesn’t shock the yeast, then give the whole thing a good stir.

After stirring, foam covers the entire surface

By doing this, I’m trying to keep the yeast uniformly distributed. If I didn’t, the yeast might settle to to the bottom and go dormant before they consumed all the sugar.

A Simple Mead Recipe

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After writing about mead yesterday, I decided to make one. Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients for mead:

  • 1 gallon (12 lb) of wildflower honey
  • 5 gallons water
  • 5 tsp diammonium phosphate (aka “DAP”)
  • 5 tsp cream of tartar
  • yeast (I used Red Star’s Premier Cuvee)

Basic mead making equipment:

A fermenter, stirring spoon, 3+ gallon stockpot, and a hydrometer are needed today. A 5-gallon carboy, 1-gallon jug with drilled bunges to fit, airlocks, siphon hose, and racking cane will be needed later. This is available at any homebrew/winemaking shop.

Procedure – how to make mead:

Measuring honeyAll your equipment (fermenter, stirring spoon, stockpot) should be clean. It’s also a good idea to sanitize your equipment by immersion in boiling water or sanitizing solution. YU8HwZ9FDAu1vtFJ9TNghZJJuqi0nr0v6ou can buy a commercial sanU8HwZ9FDAu1vtFJ9TNghZJJuqi0nr0v6itizer at any homebrew shop, or make your own. Measure one gallon of honey and dissolve into 2 gallons of water. In the photo, I’m pouring honey from a 5-gallon bucket into a stockpot. The stU8HwZ9FDAu1vtFJ9TNghZJJuqi0nr0v6ockpot has markings at the 8 quart and 12 quart levels. I filled it with hot (just off the boil) water to the 8 quart line, then poured in honey until it reached the 12 quart line. So I’m using the stockpot as a large measuring cup. I used hot water so that I could dissolve the honey more easily.


Filling the fermenterNext, fill the fermenter. In the photo at left, I’m pouring the 3 gallons of honey-water into my fermenter. After that, I dissolved the DAP and cream of tarter in a little water and stirred it in. Finally, I added 3 gallons of cold water and gave the whole thing a good stir.

Take a sample to measure the specific gravity with your hydrometer. Make a note of this so you can compare it to the specific gravity of the fermented mead and estimate the alcohol content. Here I measured the SG as 1.080, which means the potential alcohol is about 11% by volume. A pH measurement can be useful too, but the total acidity that winemaker’s often measure is much less useful in mead.Once you’ve taken your sample, you can pitch the yeast. I made a starter the day before with about a quarter cup honey dissolved in a cup of water with a pinch of DAP and cream of tartar. This gave my yeast a head start, and I poured the starter into my fermenter after I drew my sample.

Mischievous meadmaker tasting his honeyIt’s vital to stay focused and diligent. Due care must always be taken to perform each step with rigor and precision. Never forget the seriousness of your task 🙂


Update 5/28/07 – clarifying the mead with bentonite

I racked the mead into a new carboy and fined with bentonite.

 

Update 11/8/07 – aging the mead in oak

I racked off the bentonite sediment and onto some oak chips. I also adjusted the acidity.

 

Update 1/27/08 – different ways to make mead

There are many different ways to make mead, and in June 2007 I briefly discussed three of my other meads as well as an apple wine. I bottled all four that day, including some of the first mead I ever made, a mead in honor of Brother Adam, and the most wine-like mead I ever made.

Wildflower Mead

Update 3/23/2009: Bottled – the mead tastes great!

This is a simple recipe that turned out great – the only hard part was waiting. It was definitely worth the wait, and I would recommend this recipe to anyone interested in, or curious about, mead.

Not Just Tomatoes And Rhubarb Either

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To make a simple mead, dilute honey with water and ferment. You can mix this up in all sorts of ways by adding different ingredients; like fruit, herbs, and vegetables; varying the final alcohol, sweetness, and acidity; and by using different kinds of honey.

I had heard about mead and read about mead, but I didn’t know what it tasted like. It turns out that there are commercial meads available at retail, but I couldn’t find any at the time. So four years ago I started making my own. The idea was to find out “what mead tastes like,” and that meant sticking to simple dry meads. Once I made a few good examples of a plain dry mead, I could decide if I liked it or not. Well I do, and I’ve been trying out different fruit additions. In fact, I just bottled a cherry mead yesterday.

So, what does mead taste like? I can’t tell you. No really, have you ever tried to describe what vanilla tastes like? It’s used in all sorts of things and we all know what it tastes like, but how exactly would you put that into words? I’m afraid you’ll have to buy a commercial mead or make your own. The good news is: it’s easy to make, and tomorrow I’ll post a simple recipe for a plain mead to get you started.

Future Tomato Vineyard

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Gold Nugget tomato seedlings barely an inch tall on 4/24/07For my tomato wine, I’m growing Gold Nuggets. They’re cherry tomatoes that turn yellow-orange when ripe; here’s how they looked on 4/24/07. In the ten days it took to expose the roll of film, process and digitize it, the seedling have grown from less than two inches to over four inches tall; maybe I need to rethink this whole digital camera fad 🙂

Rhubarb Wine

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I remember when I was offered my first taste of rhubarb wine. I had never sampled non-grape wine (country wine) before, but my thoughts changed from “is this a joke?” to “how much of this have you got?” with the first sip. I have since planted rhubarb in my garden, and I’ve been making wine from it for two years. I owe a lot to the Hutterite colony in Montana, they still make that terrific wine, for their inspiration and generous advice.

Rhubarb stalks on the cutting board - 4/25/07

The first harvest of 2007 yielded 10 oz (about 275 grams), and I expect to harvest every month through August. I discard the leaves, chop up the stalks and freeze them. Once I’ve gathered the entire harvest (last year’s was 4lb or about 1.8 kg), I’ll begin work on my third vintage.