KNF: FPJ and OHN, and OHN tea

Ah–ahcronyms! That stands for Korean Natural Farming: Fermented Plant Juice and Oriental Herbal Nutrient. After weeks of prep, FPJ and OHN were ready to “decant” and use and store. FPJ On 5/2 (about a month ago), I went about in my garden in the early morning collecting the meristems of all the most vigorously growing …

Mead Clearing

The mead I made in September has cleared a lot. This is the bottle (front) in September: It’s much lighter now. Here’s the bottle next to the year-old, wholly clarified mead: The bottom is a moonscape of dead yeast people and quaintly coalesced beeswax. But something else in the yeasts must make them consume and …

Old, Clear Mead and Young, Sweet Mead

This mead is done! It was made with raw honey and champagne yeast. After more than a year in the carboy, I bottled it. It is quite dry, with that typical, somewhat surprising mead flavor reminiscent of honey. it can age some more in the bottle. Look how clear it is, compared to the next …

First Harvests

This is one of my favorite times of the year: the first harvests are coming in. For greens, we are eating kale, lettuce, chard and good king Henry, New Zealand spinach, mache, minutina, and celery. All the herbs – parsley, rosemary, sage, etc. are ready. The malabar spinach is almost ready and it’s a lovely …

Spring?

This has been/still is a hard winter. It’s been one snow storm after another, with long stretches of below freezing temperatures.  Three weeks ago I caught a bug which developed into pneumonia – hence the silence here – and now that I’ finally up and about, Amie caught something as well. That’s how it goes. …

Homemade Wine Bottle Labels

 Some of these are inside jokes: PS. We’re not in Seattle. Far from it. The majority agreed that labels with castles on them lend a certain cachet to the wine: When the conversation turned to sulfites, the theme changed:  From there on out, it was a free for all: Some of them mention an expiration date:  Â