Vegetable Garden

As promised yesterday we attacked the overgrown 2nd bed and although didn't finish it completely we did an exceptional job in very hot conditions. There are three panels remaining which shouldn't now take al that long tomorrow. Our plan is to continue weeding beds for the next few days and get everything up to date. In particular all bare soil will have either good compost added and old Lucerne hay mulched over to protect it. Or some areas will have a layer of chicken litter sprinkled on the surface and old Lucerne hay added and in a few weeks a green manure crop planted.

How nice to have a tidy bed

And the weeding's ready to run through the mulcher/chipper

The Watermelons are beginning to ripen and as is usual they all come in a burst with far too much for us to eat. This is not a problem as most of our gardening friends don't grow them and they make great surprise gifts especially in this hot weather.



The Orangeglo

A small Moon and Stars alongside Rockmelon



The other half of the Orangeglo and a ricotta cheesecake using Rockmelon

After a solid morning in the garden we took the afternoon off and went into Raymond Terrace to collect a couple of plumbing items from the newly opened Masters store. Another giant building which will spell doom for the local hardware stores of which one already closed in the last couple of years. It's hard to imagine the others will remain viable for long.

Already in one of the main streets a largish green grocer has shut shop. This was sad as it was owned and operated by two young brothers. The national supermarkets don't leave much room for small players. The local sole traders are at an immediate disadvantage on weekends. The hardware stores were both closed when we arrived in the town leaving no option but for us to seek our sink trap washers at the national chain.

At least we can report that the Masters store was incredibly expensive compared to its other national rival Bunnings. I'd recently purchased a female extension cord plug at Bunnings to assemble the thermostat controller for wine making. Always liking to keep a spare I went in search of the item. At Bunnings it had been $5 it was a bit of a shock when the same item came in at $8. We spent a little time scouting around the store and noting prices. In general it looked as if prices were all a bit high. I wonder if many of the shoppers do any price comparisons any more. Maybe thee is hope for the local trader.

Getting Back to Gardening vegetables

Both of us have been a little unmotivated to to get really stuck into the vegetable garden. It is a mix of reasons. There is the distraction of vintage which consumes not so much time but it does throw out the routine. The early starts for me to go grape picking mean its impossible to get down to the pool for exercise at 7 or 8. Especially since I'm not back before 10 to put the grapes into the chillers and head across the river to move irrigation and back again at evening to do the same. In between its processing and attending to grapes.

Filling in all the gaps around the place is Jean who gets to do all the feeding, watering and cooking while I play winemaker. She is also spending a lot of time across the river harrowing and picking up fallen poplar limbs.

 

The paddock bed we call the Tomato bed is ticking along nicely producing Bitter Melon, Cucumber, the last of the Tomatoes, Zucchini, Squash, Corn, Okra, Rock melon and now the Water melons are ripening. Very little maintenance is now required as it is so dry and the only grass is around the edges of the Tomatoes.

But the house vegetable beds have been let go. A few things like Rocket, Radichio, Fennel and Parsley have been let go for seed saving. This is a good idea except it makes the beds very untidy and difficult to manage. These plants grow tall as they set seed and push up the exclusion nets. They also prevent the watering system from reaching all corners. A problem in these dry times.

Jean has been hand watering a few new plantings such as Carrot, Beetroot, Radish and a few salad greens.

But today she said “lets make a start” and finish one bed. And we did. The nets were pegged up along the entire bed. Some general maintenance was done to these and I pulled up all the larger dried out seed plants. Jean methodically weeded the smaller weeds with me pitching in. As we cleared a section in came the compost to be mixed into the dryish soil. After a good watering in we put old Lucerne as mulch over all the bare spots and gave it another water.

Despite being a stinking hot day we powered on and finished the bed as well as mowing round the edges. It looks great, a real reward for some hard work. The plan tomorrow is to do another bed. The old enthusiasm is back.

 

Nice and tidy

On the left is tomorrow's job. It is a good indication of how the bed on the right looked a few hours earlier.

 

Part of the renewed vigour is that we took a day off the day before. Packed the dogs in the work ute. The two girls on the tray and Nikki with his recovered neck injury on the back seat. As we passed through Raymond Terrace we did some chores such as the library to drop off and pick up and then the building society to do some transactions. The next stop was the mushroom farm to collect a Farm Box. I thought they were $10 for 3 KG but was firmly put straight "They haven't been $10 for 2 years". Only shows how long it is since we have been down that way.

 

Then off to the destination. A look around Lemon Tree Passage, Tanilba Bay and Oyster Cove. We haven't ventured there before and it was a relaxing and pleasant day. The dogs loved it, especially hanging out the window or the sides of the vehicle.

 

I don't know what it is but a trip in the car like that knackers the dogs. That night despite just being in the car most of the time they collapsed exhausted, not even interested in dinner. Is it just the excitement that takes it all out of them?

Energy Future

Speculating about the future is always interesting.

Science Fiction writers do it all the time. Some concentrate on a future so far out we'll never know how clever they were or weren't. Others look closer to this moment and explore possibilities and often we look back and see how insightful they were predicting mobile telephones and hand held computers.

But predicting the future is still a guessing game and is limited only by our imagination and history. History tells us that rapid and uncontrolled change in our planets climate only comes about in rare and catastrophic circumstances the most prominent examples would be a stray sizeable meteorite or a massive volcano. Although don't rule out a medium sized nuclear exchange.

Generally everything else happens slowly and takes thousands of years if not millions. It is a big planet after all and even though the human cockroach (apologies to the cockroaches of the world) is in vast numbers it will take us a little while to ruin the place completely. But it is inevitable that we will bugger it.

The reason it will happen is that there are relatively few people that are both concerned and actively doing something to reverse the situation. There may be some that are concerned or acknowledge what is occurring but are too selfish or lazy to make an effort.

The problem with the concept of peak oil, peak coal or peak coal seam gas is that it doesn't factor in the effects of price. The higher the price the more readily we make attractive alternate previously too expensive (and more polluting) sources such as deep sea, tar sands, Arctic Circle. We already do this with Gold, processing hundreds of tons of rock for a minute amount and make a large profit.

The worst that can happen (in the medium term) is that there will be the haves and the have nots. Those that can afford it and those that can't.

The biggest problem associated with “peak” and “price” may be that we accelerate the downward trend with more pollution, bigger holes in the ground and my biggest concern universal Fracking. Unlike an open cut coal mine you don't see much above ground or measure the particle pollution. The long term effects of extracting coal seam gas will not be known for generations. We don't really understand the complex nature of our planet and therefore can't forecast the impact of many of our geological incursions. On a small scale the damage may be limited to localities but on a larger scale it may have a regional impact on water.

In the really long term there may be fewer of us and that is good. As the climate changes so will we. Adapting to the changing living conditions just as we have over the last million years.

On a positive note our electricity supply has some elasticity. We have started harvesting solar energy at a household level and this will continue to expand. We are building more efficient household appliances and some people (but not many) even turn off unused lights. We have not really attacked the smart meter option which would give us better load balancing by offering price reductions for off peak consumption e.g. run the pool pump at night, have the energy company manage air conditioning loads etc.

Our modes of transport are getting more efficient and economical and some people even consider 4WD vehicles in suburbia a waste of both energy and resources. A few people are building houses that are environmentally clean (and even smaller). Many people are working actively to encourage cleaner, greener living. Growing of your own food is ramping up as well as the preponderance of grower markets in every town.

That is all the good news. The bad news is that the majority of humans are self interested and couldn't give a toss about anything other than their own tiny space.

HHF Tannat

We harvested our own Tannat grapes. The first crop from these relatively young vines. A whopping 3.8 KG.

The bunches were frozen for 24 hours which with such a small quantity didn't take a lot of effort. The sugar came in at 26.5 Brix and the pH was 3.9 which was adjusted down with Tartaric Acid. Once defrosted BDX yeast was added. All this is in a small stainless steel bucket.

And that is a short post.

Rehydrating yeast

The cave is getting a little crowded now that vintage is nearing the end

Termites

The week before last I grabbed an empty 5 litre brown demijohn from the bottom storage shelf in the cave to use in the wine making. We have lots of these stored on the higher shelf and this was the only one sitting on the bottom shelf due to space shortage. My eye caught an unusual mark on the shelving. A distinctive colour change from the shiny clear lacquer finish. A look at the base of the demijohn confirmed my thought and then an inspection with a torch confirmed my disbelief. Termite activity and live ones scurrying away from where the demijohn had been.

The mark of termites

After calls to three pest control companies, one was found which did not start the conversation about how many pages were included in their site report. The earliest any one could conduct an inspection was ten days away.

Not performing any intervention activity in the interim was reinforced something I vaguely remembered from many years ago when talking with an entomologist turned pest inspector. In those days the treatment was to gently open one of their tunnels and lightly and gently dust some participants with arsenic. Apparently individual termite behaviour is to return to the colony with food and come in contact with the queen who licks them and tnd thus dies bringing an end to the colony breeding.

Now the treatment is more sophisticated.  Special baits are inserted in the areas of activity which contain a harmless to humans chemical developed by the CSIRO. Termites shed their exterior shell on a very regular basis. This chemical prevents them from shedding which causes them to die.

So for the time being they are left alone to continue their destructive work. At this point we had no idea as to the extent of their activity in the cave. The building is soft wood framed with steel exterior cladding and Gyprock clad interior. Whether they had commenced destroying the roof supports of wall supports we had no idea and would not find out for 10 days. And I'm sure it was not covered by insurance.

Today was the day and the man arrived. He confirmed the mark on the shelf was termite damage. We lifted off a board in the ground level shelving to expose a massive level of activity. It appeared the shelving about three metres in length was a mass of very busy termites. The noise level was quite distinct -  a steady hum of activity. Back went the board so as not to disturb them. They like moisture and no light.

The next step was to approximate the size and extent of the activity and then find the point of ingress. The good news was they were contained no higher than a couple of hundred millimetres up the wall and mostly in the bottom shelving. Well it was good news that the roof would not collapse. The exterior metal sheeting could at least be removed reasonably easily later when the colony was deceased and any timber replaced and splints installed for structural supports. Not too serious so far.

After a long search the ingress point was found and left undisturbed. We discussed remedial works to be done later to reduce further risks. Not too hard. Just leave about 75 mm of slab exposed and fix the leaky gutter which kept the ingress point moist. The exposed slab is a partial deterrent but it also allows for easy inspection.

A thorough inspection of the house revealed no activity and some suggestions were made as to preventative actions for it..

The removal of the colony will take many weeks as baits are inserted, checked and replaced until finally the colony dies. Two options take a fixed price of $2000 plus GST or pay per visit until the job is done. Oh well fixed price sounds good and todays visit is deducted from the fixed payment.

What alternatives does one have?

And of course he had no spare baits with him to start the treatment. Being fully booked up his next visit would not be for another two weeks unless there was a cancellation of his appointments.

We wait and live with our termites.

Tannat

Another 4 am start. This time to pick Tannat our favourite grape variety.

Tannat is mostly found in Madiran where they make these powerful full bodied robust wines that age incredibly. They tend to drink the wines young rather than let them age. Consequently the longevity of males in Madiran is higher than the rest of France. There is probably a terroir factor involved as well. Although this is Hunter Valley Tannat and it may not contain all the longevity factors of its French grown cousin we are willing to give it a chance.

The fruit this vintage was exceptionally good. Healthy large bunches hung from the vines. Some of the bunches had berries that had commenced dehydrating and concentrating the sugars and improving the skin to juice ratio. The brix at crush showed 25 which is excellent. The pH came in at 3.76 indicating a ripe fruit but needed some Tartaric Acid to bring it closer to 3.5. The taste test was the best indication of ripeness. The sweet flavours had no unripe greenness and I tested a lot of bunches as picking progressed.

The picking of Tannat is an absolute pleasure the bunches have long stems and hang low on the vine. It went so quickly and with the fruit in such a good state that a little extra was picked resulting in an 80 KG harvest.

At HHF the two barrels went straight into the freezer while breakfast was consumed and a little work performed across the river. In the afternoon the grapes went through the crusher/de-stemmer and the must went back to the freezers to get it down to Minus 3 C.

Once again we intent to try preliminary freezing as a way to extract the maximum colour and phenolics by shattering the cells in the skin.

Apologies to Gavin Webster and his followers on Greening of Gavin for our over use of energy in wine making but we promise to compensate somewhere else. Sometimes the passion to produce the best possible end product overpowers all else.

2014 Vintage Update

Shiraz, Merlot, Tempranillo

After having frozen these three batches to below 0C it was time to defrost them so as to add the yeast. It took all day and night to have the temperature rise into the high teens early twenties. This morning The yeasts were rehydrated in grape juice taken from each batch that had been warmed to 38 C. Then after allowing the fermenting yeasts to cool to within 10 C of the main batches these starter batches were added back.

Two new yeasts are being tried both from Vintners Harvest an American company. The yeasts were sourced from a local home brew shop.

The Shiraz has VR21 which will go up to 15% alcohol the Shiraz has a high Brix reading of 24 and will need this.

“ Exceptional strain for full fruit red varietal wines with good structure, balance and colour. Excellent strain for red country wines.” Says the manufacturer.

The Merlot and Tempranillo have R56.

“Perfect for rich full bodied red wines with exceptional full flavoured complexity”

Chardonnay

The Chardonnay was racked after the intial fermentation slowed. Now it rests in airlocked demijohns, occasionally giving off a little CO2 as the last bits of sugar are consumed by the yeast cells. Some of the demijohns wee racked to remove the gross lees and now it was time to try some further experiments. Some of the batches that had good skin contact now had few American Oak chips added. Just to see if there would be any flavour improvement. And yes an un-oaked demijohn was kept of each as a comparison.

Sauvignon Blanc

These batches are in demijohns under refrigeration to keep the fermentation temperature between 12 and 15 C. They are bubbling away slowly. The airlocks aren't bubbling because they don't have water in them. Instead there is a little wad of cotton wool. This was recommended in one technical reference to enable H2SO2 to more readily escape. And it is escaping. There is a distinct rotten egg smell when the doors of the refrigeration units are opened.

Rose

These draining's from the Shiraz, Merlot and Tempranillo batches are all fermenting under airlock also under refrigeration. Once they are nearly finished they will be racked and a little addition of oak chips made just to add another dimension.

Chambourcin

Has pretty much finished its fermentation but some skins are still apparent on the surface. The goal is to have these skins in contact with the wine for a minimum of 22 days before pressing and storing in demijohns with Oak chips to settle and age. There is a plastic sheet covering the container to keep out bugs and every day a little CO2 is squirted over the surface to add some further protection against infection. This is the nervous part of the process. While it was madly fermenting the CO2 gas produced as a by-product protected the wine but now the only protection is the small amount of Potassium metabisulphite that was added at the crush and the daily burst of CO2.

Pinot Noir

The fermentation has slowed but not finished. The skins rise but not much and a once or twice daily plunging occurs. This is also now under plastic protection and also getting a whisp of CO2.