Recent content by RHGibson

Thank you, Adam! I did find the More Winemaking site a few days ago, not specifically when searching for info on making wine organically, but on acidity, pH, etc. I'll spend some more time on the site when I have a free moment. I much appreciate your information & offer of further assistance.

Both. I have been gardening & farming organically since the 70s, even created an organic houseplant fertilizer back then. I prefer not to use synthetic additives of any sort, or cleaning & sanitizing agents. We use hydrogen peroxide for sanitizing sprouting trays & pots in our herb & veggie...

Wine and Hop Shop in Madison WI recommends removing at least 90% of the stems after crushing Concord or Foch-Millot grapes, and "most" of the stems for Frontenac. https://wineandhop.com/pages/knowledge-base

Fermaid-K does contain DAP, so if you don't want to use that, seek out Fermaid-O.

Ducks and chickens can help also. With the electric poultry nettings now available, you can pen the birds in the vineyard, keeping them from other parts of the garden & protecting both the birds and the grapes from marauding racoons (a major problem in my area!). You can knock the beetles into...

Thank you! I found them this morning when I looked for suggestions for yeast for Concords. Looks like a great resource. BTW, I am in southern Wisconsin.

It is costly. Some of my larger grower friends and I have talked about going in together to buy a large amount to reduce the per lb cost. Even buying a 5 lb bag instead of a 1 lb reduces the cost about 50%. https://beetlegone.com/pages/commercial-grade-products

other folks might be interested

Try a local beekeeping club or store for contacts. Bee aware that buying honey directly from a keeper won't necessarily be less expensive than buying from a store. Store-bought commercial honey in the USA can range from as low as $2.80/lb to $3.70/lb in 60 lb containers (5 gallons; 1 qt = 3 lbs)...

Commercial brown sugar is just white sugar (cane or beet) with molasses added to it. Molasses is the boiled juice obtained from crushing the cane or beets.

"There’s Fermaid O. “Organic” Contains organic nitrogen instead of DAP." Fermaid A & Fermaid K are not considered organic, as they have DAP. There is also Go-Ferm "an OMRI listed yeast rehydration nutrient. Go-Ferm is the original natural yeast rehydration nutrient containing a balance of...

A nice thing about BeetleGone & GrubGone (Btg) is that they have been specifically developed for Japanese beetles. There are a number of strains of Bt, but they have different target organisms. Bt aizawai is particularly effective against grape berry moths and wax moth larvae. Bt kurtaski is...

Hi - although I am the granddaughter of a California winemaker, he died when I was very young and my Mom never made wine. I have an excellent harvest of Concord grapes this year, and I want to make wine organically. I am looking for good sites on-line, recommendations of what to use (or not)...