Arctic Kiwi Wine

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Many who have been following our adventures on the farm will know that the Arctic Kiwi is one of the prominent crops we've inherited...albeit not maintained for many years. We are still harvesting these Kiwis even though we are a few days well beyond our first frost.

We have experimented with many applications for these berries, from jams to chutneys and raisins. A few weeks back, we even decided to attempt a wine. We used the Melomel (fruit-based Mead) production technique that has been most reliable for us and which has been documented on this blog.

After following the progress of this wine for a couple of weeks, we had determined that it was ready to rack, basically transfer the brew from the fermenter to a carboy. This was also a time to get a good taste of what was to come.

Racking Arctic Kiwi wine in our new cellar.

I have to admit the results are amazing and certainly the best wine we've produced to date. Even Chef, who's a wine aficionado, thought it pleasant. It reminded him of a sweet New Zealand Chardonnay. To me, it resembled a late harvest or even an ice wine, although not as syrupy. This makes sense since the Arctic Kiwi when fully ripe is loaded with concentrated sugars and takes on the character of a raisin. This wine however still held floral and tropical notes which are almost reminiscent of pineapple.

We can hardly wait to get to the bottling stage. All in all so far, this was a great discovery and will hopefully become a regular part of our farm production (once we get around all of the administrative hurdles dictated by the Ontario government for local wine producers).

This week was also all about Halloween and although this made it a fun week, it reminded us that the Holiday season is fast approaching. As such, it was time to launch our latest venture at the market: Seasonal Gift Baskets.

The team has been working every day producing Gift Baskets and is having a difficult time producing the corporate orders we now have on hand. The baskets are of course based on our preserves and cordials, but also include the coffees and teas we serve at the restaurant as well as some local artisanal products.

It's gift basket production time at the market

Chef is now also heavily involved in the production of these baskets. We have been adding a selection of traditional seasonal European cookies and breads. In order to meet the demand, we've even enlisted our younger daughter Morgan.

Morgan doing what she loves: baking, and helping Chef with our cookie production

With the weather turning rather cold, it was also time to get back to the Biodome. We acquired a digital thermometer and humidity sensor to record both inside and outside temperature as well as minimum and maximum values.

Our new digital temperature recorder for the Biodome

What we discovered is that the temperature difference between the exterior and interior of the dome is roughly 7 degrees Celsius. We were really hoping for at least 10 degrees. It turns out that our dome is not at all well insulated. There are a lot of gaps between the dome structure and the foundation. So much of our time has been spent sealing these.

Having said this, the few plants living in the dome are doing quite well. Our fennel cuttings are simply loving the environment and our strawberry plant is still producing fruit.

The fennel is alive and well....

while we are still picking small strawberries in November.

We have also had a chance to work on the hydroponic beds that will form part of the Aquaponics facility. Here have encountered some issues. Nothing major, but our overflow pipe was not properly sealed and leaked inside the wooden casing of the bed. This resulted from the difficulty of installing the pond liner. Basically we had too many folds to make a proper and clean cut, while the washers could not be sufficiently tightened to seal the installation.

Once filled with water, we encountered our first leak

We've also come to the realization that continuing this way will be very costly. The pond liner alone costed some $60.

After spending some time at a local hydroponics shop, we decided that perhaps working with "off the shelf" equipment might not only save us some money but would save us a lot of time. So we're now going to approach this with ready made (formed plastic) hydroponic tables. This avoids all of the pond liner issues and costs.

The problem now is that we will be effectively trying to fit a square peg in a round whole. The pre-made hydroponic beds are rectangular and we will need to come up with an arrangement that maximizes the use of the area while fitting these beds in a green house with a circular footprint.

Elsewhere on the farm, we continue to make some discoveries. This week it was on the ridge behind the old manor.

We know this part of the yard was used as some sort of a dump site or open air compost heap for kitchen waste before we acquired the property. This was thoroughly hidden by overgrown vines. In the end, it seems that this kitchen waste must have included some seeds.

Covered with weeds, the ridge behind the manor is due for a major landscaping project.

Within this mess we found some vines. One was producing a beautiful "goose neck" gourd, the other a rather large yellow squash which we suspect is some sort of Zucchini. We found a half dozen of these beautiful fruits which have now joined the rest of our Winter squashes in the cellar.

A surprising find in the weeds.

I will close this week with another surprise. Most blog readers will know we are avid processors of Black Walnuts. This Fall, we intend to process at least 2 bushels of these wonderful nuts.

Our total harvest however has been hampered. We placed a large amount of nuts inside a plastic bin. This bin was inside and in the back of the barn, in a place not readily accessible. When we came to husk this batch nuts, we discovered that the vast majority had vanished. Left behind were just shreds of black husks.

Some critter has decimated our Black Walnut inventory

We suspect some sort of audacious critter...a chipmunk or squirrel. Then I came across a picture of a very likely "ballsy" culprit :)

Watch out for this guy!