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Hi Ina, Hope you find your energy again very soon. I am in upstate NY about 180 miles north of NY City - and our temperatures are in the 70's - 80's during August (about 25 C) but temperatures of 15 C or thereabouts tend to be OK for yeast. They may perform more slowly but their performance at such ...

Actually, too warm temperatures create too fast fermentations and those can create poor flavors and off flavors from the yeast. You really want cooler temperatures for wine making - perhaps 18 -21 C. Perhaps even lower.

Well, I'll certainly make more of an effort to make wine in future... For various reasons I didn't do that this year. Truth is that wine making is incredibly simple and takes virtually no time from a busy schedule. You can use fruit you forage or buy, juice you press or buy, edible flowers you fora...

What might happen as taxes on alcohol rise is that more folk may turn to making moonshine... Certainly not advocating this...merely making the observation. In the USA this is still illegal in every state as far as I know and the cost of licensure is prohibitive both in terms of time involved and cost.

I used to make liqueurs like that - but there is no inexpensive booze here anymore, so it's really too expensive these days. Hmmm... In NY we can get 1.75L of inexpensive vodka (80 proof) for about $19.00 and that converts to about $4.00 per 350 ml and if you add simple syrup that will increase the...

Interesting, Green Aura. I would have thought that alcohol is a better solvent than sugar and using sugar to extract flavor means that you in fact obtain fewer of the essential oils from the substrates and less of those you do obtain than using alcohol. Sounds like an experiment that is begging to b...

Harvested basil (so far two harvests with a third just about ready)to make pesto and some rhubarb .

Here's another suggestion for those who can forage only a very small quantity of berries or other fruit: what about making liqueurs? I was able to harvest about 400 g of mulberries so not enough for even a bottle of wine, but plenty for a liqueur, and so to these berries I added about 750 mil of an ...

Growing vegetables enables you to feel much more connected to the land and the planet. I am growing potatoes in 5 gallon bags and have been experimenting using seeds cut from heirloom tomatoes (you slice the tomato and sow the slice with the seeds).. If you have back problems you might also consider...

As a naive vegetable gardener who plants multiple "crops" in beds 4 m by about 3.3 m is there any scientific basis for "rotating" crops? I am not growing acres of a single plant and I am continually replacing nutrients used up each season when I add compost and other adjuncts. Isn't the basis for ro...

I am not sure that "hoarding" is the problem here. Hoarders seem to actively collect "stuff" rather than fail to get rid of "stuff" that clutters their living space. Hoarding can point to a form of compulsive behavior that might be pathological. Clutter is different. It's when we have too much stuff...

Hi Weedo, Interesting point. I never thought about those of us who spend some time in one culture and some time in another. I am with the State University of NY and my working day is very dependent on technology (we have meetings via Skype and I have multiple terminals on my desk but when I return h...

I think what you are observing is that we live with a number of cultures none of which really understand the other and none of which really speak to any other. One culture views everything as disposable and looks to find the ways to live using money to solve most problems. Here, for example, there a...

Ah.. What a great idea.. I see it now. The Grow bag is cut so it resembles a W (sort of kind of) I might in fact borrow that idea although I did splurge and bought about six re-usable bags from Amazon... But I can always return them...

I've heard of people using a grow-bag cut in half. Imagine the bag flat on the ground in front of you; make a cut through the upper surface half-way along (ie divide across the short axis) leaving the underside intact to keep the halves together. Lift up the (cut) middle and readjust the contents s...