Using Brix Readings

[Guest guest]

>> I've been intending to do exactly that for some time but haven't

bought a refractometer yet. There are good ones on eBay (search for

RHB32-ATC, that's the one that I am planning on buying). I've talked to

a guy who sells refractometers on BrixTalk and that was what he

recommended. You can buy an Atago (the preeminent brand, made in Japan)

but they're really expensive.

Whichever one Peaceful Valley is selling is probably the best and best value.

I borrowed a brix meter years ago and it seemed to me that the meter just

confirmed my own perceptions. There is a special quality that you are aware of

if you eat a lot from the garden within minutes of picking, and once you get

used to that (which I did, growing up with dedicated organic gardeners blessed

with fertile clay soil), all the degrees of NOT-that (ie, low brix) are readily

apparent.

If you eat for flavor, choose for flavor - and I'm talking about that impossibly

evanescent and sensuous quality of freshly picked veg that makes an ordinary

green been taste like ambrosia - then you will be eating as high-brix as you can

in your environment.

And I agree, you can raise brix - although often the first year in virgin soil

is amazing without much intervention. Are you schooling on biodynamic

gardening?