Grape Cluster Problem

I was wondering if anyone had an idea of how to take care of this problem? 

We have 15 grape vines with a lot of grape clusters on them.  And, we also have a lot of wasps and yellow jackets that eat them every year just as they are ripening, because they are next to our orchard(we don't have this problem with the grapes in the greenhouses).  We have lava rock walls half-way around them to protect them from the wind during the winter. 
So, we are trying to come up with a way to protect the clusters from the wasps.

We thought of covering the whole plant with fabric like window screen to keep the wasps out.  But the lava rock walls have spaces between them and any wasps can get through. 

If we covered the whole plant and rock wall with a 4x4x3 foot frame covered with screen fabric, that would work but consists of a lot of labor to make them, but we would re-use them every year.

The best idea and maybe the least amount of effort we can come up with is to loosely wrap each cluster (there are a lot of them) with window screen type of fabric to keep the wasps away from the grape clusters.

If birds were the only problem we could just cover each row with netting, like we do our raspberries.  But, wasps can get through the netting.  If we can get a large roll of window screen type of fabric netting and cover whole rows (we haven't looked for it yet) that would probably be the better.

Maybe some of you can see a solution which we don't see yet.  Thanks, Lee Garrett.

Our outside grapes

New green beans in the greenhouse.

We have new green bean pods in the greenhouse, but the green beans in the garden are barely starting to grow, because of the lateness of warm enough weather here (Eastern Idaho short growing season).  We couldn't grow all the food that we need without the greenhouses.

Green bean pods

Greenhouse #1

Greenhouse #2

Garden green beans

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Some of our cows from the past and present.

      Milkshake gave us Brian the day this picture below was taken.  Later that day she wasn't attentive to Brian as she had always been to her calves.  And, she was standing out in the pasture staring off into space and not acting like her old self.

      The next morning she was on the ground barely breathing.  So, we called a rancher friend who came over with some bottles of calcium and we fed her intravenously, but later that day she died.  Because Milkshake was an older cow, she was susceptible to Milk Fever.  Milk Fever is not really a fever but a condition called Hypocalcemia which is low blood calcium levels.  The low calcium causes problems with muscle function and causes weakness, and eventual heart failure.  Older cows and certain dairy breeds are more susceptible to the problem.  But, we didn't know about Milk Fever before this happened.  It was a very sad day to lose Milkshake.

      After Milkshake died, Brian had to be bottle fed.  We used 12 ounces of dry milk re-placer powder, mixed with 8 cups of warm water.  This was mixed in a bowl with a whisk before pouring it into the bottle.  We fed Brian two bottles a day until the bag of milk re-placer was used up.  This lasted about 8 weeks.  We started feeding him three times a day for the first few days until he got used to the re-placer, then changed to twice a day using the same total amount.  When the bag of milk re-placer was almost gone we tapered down the amounts, to wean him off of it gradually.  Tapering down the amounts of milk re-placer is better for the calf’s system.  The picture below shows Nick feeding Brian a one quart bottle of milk re-placer.

      The picture below shows Brian some time before he was sent to be butchered.

This is Yum-Yum our newest steer.

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Our challenge with grapes.

Grapes: 

      We have encountered challenging problems with growing grapes here, due to the severe winter cold.  Our grape vines near the orchard died their first winter.  After planting these grapes we tried to insulate them with straw to protect them from the harsh winter freezing.  We used flakes of straw about 2 inches thick laid over the plants.  A flake is a section of hay or straw that naturally flakes off of the end of a bale after the twine has been cut.  This solution didn't work the way we had hoped.  Half of the vines died completely, the rest died back to the ground and the root only survived.  Since it takes grapes two or three seasons to start producing, these roots started from the beginning again. The grapes came back and started growing but we wanted to figure out what to do to help them survive, or we would encounter the same problem in the coming winter.

      We checked with people around the area and found out that there was one person who was having success, by planting them along a rock wall.  So our solution was to stack up small 18 to 24 inch high lava-rock half-circles around the vines with the open side facing south.  This has worked very well and all the vines have survived well and are producing.
As shown in the picture we now have 15 grape vines growing near the orchard, each with their individually stacked half round rock wall and all are doing very well.

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Our orchard is bearing apples, pears, and plums.

The area that we live in is very windy and knocks the blossoms off of our fruit trees.  We are never sure if we will get any fruit.  So I checked our trees and all of them have small apples, pears, or plums.  Hopefully our fruit doesn't get knocked off by the wind when they get bigger.

Using Our Apple Press This Fall

Using Our Apple Press:
Our procedure for harvesting and pressing apples for cider is as follows.  We pick three to six 5-gallon buckets of ripe apples at a time, and process them within two or three days.  First, the press is set up with a large container underneath for the cider to drain into, which also has a strainer set on it to filter out any large pieces that may fall in.  Then, the apples are washed in a bucket of water before they are processed in the press.  But, we can usually skip this step if the apples look pretty clean, and if we know there hasn't been any chemical spraying on the trees.  Next, one of us puts the apples into the hopper, skin and all to grind them up, while the other person turns the grinding wheel handle.  The chopped up apples drop into a mesh-cloth-lined tub container under the hopper, where the chunks collect until the container is full.  While the tub container fills up with chopped apples, occasionally one of us pushes the pieces down to pack the container more tightly until we are ready to press it.  When the tub container is full, we put the round tub-ram into the tub and press the cider by cranking down the large pressing screw on top of it.  The container with the strainer on top catches all of the cider, and then food safe bottles are filled with cider, and frozen.

When we pick the apples we only take home apples that we have picked on the tree.  We don’t take any off of the ground, and if we drop one then it doesn't go home with us.  This way we don’t have any sanitation problems.  Most of the apple trees in this area are flood irrigated so there is the chance of getting apples with e-coli or something else on them if they have been on the ground.  Although, sometimes we will take home apples off of the ground and feed them to our animals, but we keep them separate from the apples that we eat.

When our son was very young we pressure canned some of the apple cider in canning jars just for him, in case of bacteria.  But, we have never had any problem with drinking fresh pressed apple cider, or cider frozen for later use.

The picture shows apples getting chopped up in the hopper, and then collecting in the mesh-lined tub   Notice that the cider is already starting to flow before it is pressed.

Below Nick is turning the pressing screw and pressing some ground up apples into cider.  On the top of the stainless steel container is the strainer to keep out any chunks of apple that could miss the tub and fall into the cider.

We also use apples we pick for applesauce and apple pie filling.  Transparent apples make excellent applesauce and pie filling, but are absolutely horrible for cider.   We prefer Strawberry Crab and McIntosh the most for cider, and mixing these varieties of apples makes very good cider.

This is an excerpt from 'Food Self Sufficiency: How We Do It.'

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Our Potatoes in Our Small Greenhouse.

These are a few potato plants in our small greenhouse, compared to a farmer's potato field across the street.

Potatoes in Our Small Greenhouse

Farmers Potato Field across the street

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