Black Walnut Tree

Here is a black walnut tree my dad planted some years back. The deer will visit it every so often and eat its limbs.

New Purdue University Building in New Albany, Indiana

Here is the new Purdue University building in New Albany, Indiana. The classes for College of Technology are taught on the first floor with the Purdue Foundation and extension offices on the second floor. It is much nicer than in the basement of the science building on the Indiana University Southeast campus though it is not as nice not having the library nearby to go study in.

The building is still under construction and the not everything is ready where the first floor is. While in class I can hear power tools being used and you can see construction workers walk by from time to time.

Purple Wild Flower

Here are some wild flowers growing in the parking lot of the new Purdue building in New Albany, Indiana. There are some nice flowers behind the building as well but too many construction people there right now to take pictures.

Berry Plant

Here is a berry plant growing in the flower garden. I do not know its name but when I was a child we use to make ink out of its berries. I was told as a child the berries were poisonous.

The Lone Peach

This is the only peach to make it to ripeness. Among the three peach trees, there were 5 peaches but the others rotted or fell off the trees before getting ripe.

Two Cut Crimson Sweet Watermelons

Here are two watermelons that I de-seeded and cut into bite size pieces. I then took some of it for food at the geology society meeting and the rest I gave away to my sister.

Making Concord Grape Jelly

I made my first batch of concord grape jelly earlier in the week. As the process moved along I took some pictures of some of the steps.

Here are the cleaned, ripe grapes taken from the stem. I weighed them at a little over 9 pounds.


The recipe called for taking about 4 pounds of grapes and mashing them with a potato masher to get the pulp and skins separate.


I then placed the mashed grapes in a pot and cooked them till they boiled and then simmered them for about 10 minutes.

After they started boiling, the grapes look like this. A purple, frothy mixture that is ready to be strained.

I used a screen to filter the juice out since I could not find any cheesecloth in the store. It takes about 10-20 minutes to strain. I mixed the grapes around from time to time to get the juice flowing.

This picture shows heated grapes being strained or waiting to be strained.

Here is about 32 ounces of grape juice with out any sweetener. I did not take pictures of the boiled lids, the sterilizing of the canning jars, the adding of the pectin and sugar to the grape juice, the mixing of 4 cups of sugar to the pectin/grape mixture. Also I could of taken picture of pouring of jelly into the jars but it would be hard to hold the camera and pour jelly at the same time.

The jars have jelly in them with lids and screws applied. I then boiled the jars for 5-10 minutes and then removed them with tongs. They jelly then cooled off.

I had some jelly left over that did not fill an entire jar so I poured in this one and used it to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

It is a lot of work to make jelly and grape juice but rewarding to have fresh food. In retrospect, I could have gone to the store and bought some jars of jelly for about $5-10.

Looking Toward the Sky and Seeing Grapes

Here are some ripe grapes ready to be picked. I picked about 80% of the grapes on the 6 plants growing. I filled two plastic grocery bags with grapes and they weighed in at 21 pounds (about 9.5 kgs).

Here are all the clean ripe grapes with stems laid out on the counter.

Cut Watermelons

Here are some Crimson Sweet watermelons that were picked and soon after these pictures were taken were de-seeded and put in containers. I like to give away prepared watermelons in containers because I want the people getting the watermelon to have one that is ripe. You can never fully guarantee when you give them a whole watermelon it will be sweet.

Concord Grape Pictures

Close up image of some Concord Grapes grown in southern Indiana. These grapes are at the top of a hill in a field that gets a good deal of sun. Another set of grapes grow on a fence row next to a flower garden and they do not get as much sun. As a result, those grapes are mostly green or light purplish-pink.

A side view of the grapes that were soaked in water and had the bad/green grapes removed. You can see the container in the with the ripe grapes I beginning to separate from the stems.

More Pictures of Concord Grapes

Here is a closer look at cleaned Concord grapes still on the stem. Later they were picked off the stems and put in containers.

Second Batch of Ripe Watermelons

Here are five watermelons picked: one Jubilee like one, one Sugar Baby, and three Crimson Sweet. Their total gross weight of these watermelons totaled to 62 pounds (about 28 kgs).


The largest was this Jubilee watermelon weighing over 25 pounds (approximately 11 kgs).

Concord Grapes Harvested

Here is a picture of some Concord Grapes grown in Memphis, Indiana right before they were picked.
Here are some of the grapes on a kitchen counter. I soaked them in water for several hours to clear the bugs off of them. Next, I picked off the shriveled, damaged, and green grapes from the stems. After this, I picked the ripe grapes off the stems and placed them in containers.



Here is another picture of hanging grapes.

First Ripe Watermelons

Here are four watermelons I picked a week ago but it took me a while to post this.

The total weight came to over 44 pounds of gross weight.

As of this writing, I processed the small 4 pound Crimson Sweet melon and the Sugar Baby melon.

Below is a picture of a nice dark red color of the cut Sugar Baby watermelon.

First Watermelons

Here are the first two watermelons I picked. They appear to be Crimson Sweet variety. The vine died and I picked them.

As you can see once they were cut open they have a pink color and are not very sweet. The sugar just did not get generated or concentrated.

The two melons weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce and 7 pounds 4 ounces.

Almost Ripe Concord Grapes

When I get near the grapes now, the smell reminds me of grape jelly.

They are really starting to get ripe on the vine and hopefully there will be enough to make some jelly.

Large Watermelons in the Patch

Looks like there is a good chance to get some 30 lb watermelons this year. The plants are still growing and the fruit is getting large. Especially the back field with the Charleston Grey melons.

The last picture is a cluster of Crimson Sweet melons. Two I have already picked but they have not been weighed yet. Pictures on those soon.

Just Some More Flowers I Noticed in the Garden

Might Be the Last of Lilies for This Season

Here are some lilies that did not bloom earlier with the rest of other lilies. They have a nice pink look.