New Permaculture E-Zine

Permaculture Ottawa's Christopher Bisson has started a new online permaculture magazine for Canada. Here's my contribution: http://therhizome.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/homestead-orchard-to-forest-garden/

Things are sprouting in my fridge...

…on purpose. I'm stratifying which means giving seeds a period of moist cold to overcome germination  inhibition so they will sprout.

I place seeds on paper towels or coffee filters then put in a plastic baggie. This takes up very little space in my fridge or other location that I am giving seeds special treatment. You can also use your baggie to give seeds oscillating temperatures or warm treatment. I use the latter to get peppers to germinate faster.


Baby with breakfast on his face helping.

For very large seed that won't be in good contact with the paper towel, I've heard of people using cotton balls but I use vermiculite. I also use vermiculite with very, very small seed so that I can sprinkle the whole mix in the seeding tray when ready. Sand would probably be a good substitute.

They would stay in the fridge for a certain period of time say six weeks or whatever is recommended (yes sometimes there are no specific recommendations). During this time, you are telling the seed that it is winter and when you take them out of the fridge, they are experiencing spring so it's a good time to sprout. Only, many seeds will not wait their allotted time. Whether this be because those particular seeds or that variety does not really need the cold stratification AND also does not need high temperatures to sprout or because they prefer to germinate in the fridge-like temperatures of early spring, is something to speculate upon. Therefore, I check my baggies frequently.


Wild plums from a local source

Here, some wild plums - perhaps Prunus nigra - started to germinate after six months in the crisper whereas their cousin nanking cherry - Prunus tormentosa - jumped into growth after only a few weeks messing my plan of holding off until spring to plant. Instead I put the sprouting seedlings in the ground in fall.

Hablitzia tamnoides is reputed to prefer cooler temps to germinate though it seems somewhat adaptable. Here is my own seed crop throwing roots.


Hablitzia tamnoides, our seed for Aster Lane Edibles

I'm using the baggie method because I want to grow some of these plants big enough to sell in the spring otherwise I'd probably just wintersow. This is using a recycled (or not) plastic container with drainage and air holes partially filled with soil and seed that acts like a mini greenhouse. It is great for cold hardy greens, plants that volunteer, wild flowers and other plants that need a period of cold to germinate or at least don't mind it.

You can even snow sow. Yes, that's tossing seed on top of snow. This is a version of stratification and seems to me that it would be most effective if done in the fall or early spring just before a snowfall that would insulate the seeds and help work them to the ground.

Garden to StomachA holistic approach with the Higgs

Plums plumping up in the holistic orchard.

It’s always great when people who you meet on the internet live close enough that you can pop by for a visit. This is the case for the Higgs that live a little over three hours South-west of me. I can’t remember our first conversation, whether it was about rare fruits, mycorrhizal associations, raised beds, reskilling or fruit tree propagation or perhaps it was some happy union of all those things. Mike is one of those rare growers who stares tradition in the face and decides whether or not it’s being honest. He’s a researcher and an experimenter reading about past and present gardening trends, then trying them out in his garden to see if they accomplish the goals of feeding his family without unnecessary work. 

They draw inspiration from a variety of sources including John Jeavons (growing fertility and nutrition), Emilia Hazelip (low soil disturbance), Massanobu Fukuoka (work with nature and do as little as possible) and Mel Batholemew (intensive planting in raised beds).

Tell us about your farm:


There orchards and other tree plantings include many unusual fruits and nuts.

North of the Saint Lawrence, in South-Eastern Ontario’s rolling hills is the Higgs farm: a diverse planting of fruits, nuts, perennials and vegetables. Planted in mulched circles are an abundance of crops from perennial ground cherry to young heartnuts surrounded by tumbling squash. Laid out in staggered rows is the formal orchard, now inspired by Michael Phillips’ The Holistic Orchard, that includes rare fruits for these parts such as quince, medlar, persimmon and beach plum. Just beyond is a row of willow and poplar, propagated by softwood cuttings, that is being grown to produce ramial woodchips for the orchard and craft material. It is banked by a mulched and Dutch while clover covered berm to capture the water and direct it to the willow roots instead of it draining away downhill. Just in front of the big bay window of their home are a series of raised beds with fruit crops like haskaps and raspberries and traditional vegetables like potatoes, beets, carrots, and parsnips. There are also more rare items such as perennial wheat and rye from Tim Peters.

In the beginning:

Cutting trails in their back forest shortly after they moved to their new country home in 2008, they found a beautiful, unblemished yellow apple. “It was a potentially superior apple from one of the wild trees.” Mike wanted to propagate it but knew that he would need rootstock. "Getting some was a problem because there's little available in Canada for the small grower. Learning how to graft and produce more rootstock wasn't as big a problem although few bother with these skills anymore." He begin to research and One Thing Lead to Another. This is the title of his blog where he details experiments on how to propagate plants by techniques such as trench layering and root cuttings among other things.


Raised beds with veggies, some small fruit and a propagation bed for root stock.

Joyce’s early attempts at vegetable growing were also frustrating. Turning up the soil in what had been an old grazing field for llifestock awoke every thistle imaginable from slumber. It took hours to weed around a few strawberries. “This was not what I had signed up for,” said Joyce. Then they learned about square foot gardening  and mulching. They consider mulching an extremely essential and often overlooked part of gardening “Look at this soil,” Mike says as he pulled back the weed excluding mulch to show moist workable soil. Joyce now shares what she has learned in a column in The Link, a magazine ‘celebrating a creative lifestyle’ in the area. She also sells some plants and preserves at the farmer’s market.

The Orchard:


Concentric mulch circles of pea gravel for drainage and to prevent critter nests and mulch to encourage beneficial fungal associations. 

Though they have planted trees throughout their ten acres including butternuts and red maples in the back bush and fruit and nut trees such as mulberry, sea buckthorn, University of Saskatchewan cherries, hazelnuts, heartnuts, hardy kiwi, Virburnums, rosehips along the embankment in front of their house, up the driveway and in the fields, their holistic orchard catches the eye right away. With the help of a WWOOFer, the conventional orchard of staggered rows of young trees was modified this year based on the holistic ideas of Michael Phillips. It was mulched with an inner ring of pea gravel for drainage and to give rodents no nesting material and an outer ringof ramial woodchips to foster mutualistic fungal relationships important to tree health. The mycorrhizae get food in the form of carbohydrates from the plant’s photosynthesis and the plant gets access to water and nutrients from an expanded root system. Plants may then be healthier and more resistant to drought.


Willow cuttings beside white clover planted berm.

When I asked why he liked holistic orchardist Phillips’ approach, Mike said, “When I read the word balance, I said, ah-hah. That’s what it’s about. If I get rid of all the aphids, the ladybugs have no food and they disappear as well. If I want ladybugs to keep the aphids under control naturally, I need some aphids." Around the concentric circle plots of trees is a wildflower meadow to increase biodiversity in order to attract a permanent population of pollinators and predatory of pollinators and predatory insects. Along with Coreopsis and Echinacea, the so-called weeds such as mullein, oxeye daisy, bladder campion and Queen Anne's lace flourish in this unmown area. They have also included nutrient accumulators such as nettle and comfrey to act as a source for chop-and-drop mulch, compost teas and soil drenches. 


Squash growing near a heartnut in the open field. Note the mulch under plants.

Away from the orchard, in the uncut areas of the field, he is even experimenting with planting unruly vegetables such as squash and tomatoes in ways that minimally disturb the soil.  For example, squash is planted by laying down a thick layer of wetted and compressed grass clippings followed by a layer of partially finished compost and then a 3 inch layer of mature, plant-based compost for seeds to germinate in. As soon as the seeds are upping and growing, more mulch is added. The squash vines wander where they want beyond their mulched cradle.

This technique aligns well with the Organic Creed of feeding the soil. In order to avoid too much importing of materials, Mike is looking into plants that produce high biomass such as sterile Miscanthus giganteus, and fast growing woodies to coppice like poplar and willow.

Plans to expand: 

Lining the wrap around porch are pots of all shapes and sizes with plants and cuttings growing until they are big enough to join the lush gardens below.

One detail that I was particularly interested in was the trenching bed where he produces more rootstock to graft on rare scion wood. In a raised bed (constructed of pressure treated wood lined on the inside with vapour barrier to keep the wood and soil from being in contact)* he lays the bare root stock tree on its side, coaxing the branches upwards. Hopefully these branches will root enough that they can be detached as whole trees. "The beds are filled with pure plant compost which is very rich. It's also very friable which allows trees to be dug up easily and without damage." 


Propagation bed for root stock and more.

You can tell he is developing a feel for when a plant part will sprout roots. He speaks of dormancy and the energy burst that occurs when plants emerge.. He points out suckers coming from the rootstock of various trees with obvious glee.

Food Forests


Nice thornless blackberry being prolific

I asked him what he thought about food forests. “I’m interested in getting what’s out there in here,” he said as he points to the garden then pats his stomach. “Food forests have some problems in cold climates. It is different from warm regions where food can be grown all year round, even parts of Europe. Here, we have to store nutrition to take us through the winter. Perennial vegetables are heavy on greens that don't store well, and those that do may be difficult to harvest. The vegetables that store well are mostly annuals - root vegetables, squash, beans and corn. These are the vegetables grown by Carol Deppe, author of The Resilent Gardener."

He also talks about the importance of finding ways to incorporate staple annual vegetables into permaculture designs in our climate. Another part of the Higgs equation is that they are really interested in using what they grow and growing what they need.  Using the square foot gardening techniques advanced by Mel Bartholomew, Joyce intensively plants exactly the quantities of carrots, beets, turnips, and parsnip that she thinks they will need through the winter.

They own several canners, an oil press and a hand grain mill. The basement has a couple good-sized cellars for storing vegetables – Joyce showed me some nice looking daikon radishes in sand from last year – and canned goods.


A precocious seedling hazelnut producing very early.

Though Mike’s fruit and nut tree collection continues to grow, he is scaling back the vegetable varieties he uses to those that he thinks are most useful for winter and store well. 

I asked him about grains and he gave me an interesting answer. “I had discarded the idea as I didn’t want to till the soil and unleash the thistles as well as being dependent on fossil fuel or having to learn about horses but then I read about perennial grains. If they can produce a useful crop without soil disturbance, they could be useful for the home grower.”

One thing leads to another really does sum up their gardening journey to date. To quote Mike, “It’s a process of discovery, of finding ways to do conventional things in unconventional ways that are regenerative, tread lightly on the land and are minimally disturbing to Nature”


Mike examining some of his sprouts.

More Links (and some I've repeated because they are so good):

http://www.groworganicapples.com/
Ramial Woodchips
Mycorrhizal Fungi
One Thing Leads to Another (Mike Higgs blog)

* Here is a pinterest on raised beds but I'm sure you can find numerous designs. I’ve begun to make a propagation bed myself, lined with harvested softwood trunks infilled with leaf mould and other organic matter.

Red leafed apple baby

Geneva Crab Apple 2010

Gardening is an exercise in optimism: that things will be better, that visions of the delights of a gentle earth can become manifest, that tomorrow will happen. Like many a person has said, you plant a tree not only for yourself but for the a future you may never see: for the creatures, for shade, for fruit, for children to dare to climb up to a strong limb and dangle their feet into the thrilling air below.


Seedling tree roots

Nearly three years ago, my daughters and I were walking in the Arboretum at the Experimental Farm when we found a tree with unblemished apples. Picking one from the ground, we opened it to find red flesh. I brought another home and extracted the seeds. Some of these sprouted and now I have one with bright red leaves.


Digging it into its permanent home, I discovered what look to be the remains of an old compost pile with egg shells and squash seeds.

I don't know whether or not it will have the tasty red fleshed cider fruit of its parent Geneva or be what is unfortunately called a spitter but I hope to find out one day. Now it is a small seedling planted at the back of the old greenhouse demo garden. As I was placing its roots into the soil, I imagined it growing gnarled and craggy like crabapples do. I saw it covered in pinkish blossoms in the spring, red leaves in the summer and fruit in the fall. I saw its bare limbs covered in snow. I imagined a future of plenty.


The leaves remained red all summer last year.

***
Some other things that are going on:

If you follow me on Facebook, then you'll know we like to hold Tree Thursday. Ephemeral walk coming up soon.

I've been helping out at the Canadian Organic Growers Demonstration Garden at the Experimental Farm. If you are interested, let me know.

Also, Aster Lane Edible's first workshop 'The roots go down (mostly): A veggie garden workshop for the complete beginner' will be held May 16.

A tale of two nuts

A bag of 'green' black walnuts

At the edge of our clearing are planted 100 black walnuts, Juglans nigra, in lumber spacing or at least planted quite close so they develop tall straight trunks. They are fruiting now or nutting if you prefer. These walnuts are native to eastern North America and are found in the city* despite inhibiting the growth of a wide variety of plants in their vicinity and dropping staining hulls that squish underfoot revealing a rock hard nut within.


Chufa plants with frosted foliage.

Behind our house, some chufa plants that breezed through the drought are now dying back with frost. They produce edible nutlets often called tiger nuts or ground almonds. Though the same genus and species, Cyperus esculentus, yellow nutsedge - considered an invasive plant in some parts - it does not overwinter for me. According to Dan Brisebois from the ferme-cooperative Tourne-Sol, chufa is a frost intolerant variety of this species - var. sativus - and therefore not invasive here.

What do they have in common? They are both a pain to process.


The fibrous root system of chufa filled with treasure.

Chufa is fiddly to harvest as you rummage through the roots to pull off all the nutlets. I guess if I were feeling zen, this would be fun but in my hurry hurry live, it is less joyful.


Mostly clean chufa nutlets.

Next they have to be thoroughly cleaned. I scrub them with bare hands together in a colander. Make sure that you remove any rocks or other debris at the same time. Next, they can be dried to increase their flavour and for storage. Now, if you are me, this will be good news because it means that all further processing is shelved until theoretically you have more time. For a memorable crunch, you can eat them right away too. They can be ground into flour for baking, or made into a slushy but delicious drink horchata or in other ways that you might use almonds, I imagine. I'll have to get back to you after I try them in cookies...


Mostly cleaned black walnuts quite far off fully processed.

Black walnuts, now there's a bit of work. If you are wondering what it might have been like to be a pioneer, go forth and collect ye some of nature's nutty goodness. There seem to be lots of ways of getting to the nut but here's what I did. I tore off the outer hull with gloved hands (for a more authentic experience, turn your hands rainbow brown by doing it bear handed) then I put them in a non staining sink and rubbed them together to remove most of the rest of the debris though I recently saw that someone used a wire scrubber which would work better.  Nature Skills write up on how to remove the hulls.

Finally, put them somewhere airy to dry like an onion bag or mesh screen for several weeks to months before attempting to get into their Fort Knox like shell. More on that later.

***


* Curious where to find nut trees around the Ottawa area? Here is a map. I don't know about how available these nut trees are.

The famous drink horchata is made with chufa.

Chufa is used as game food though they may be referring to yellow nutsedge.

Wormy apples are...

... delicious?


A slightly rain split head of San Michele X Red Rock Mammoth F1

At least they can be. Given the organic status of our acreage, all fruit are grown without any sprays. In the case of raspberries (and friends), currants, gooseberries, strawberries, haskaps, grapes, cherries (not that we've had too many yet) and blueberries this means simply harvesting them before something else does and for plums, harvesting slightly underripe to beat the brown rot, but when it comes to apples, creative measures are required.

This year and last, some trees (not the same ones) were ignored by the apple pests and could be stored whole in the cellar. Those that look especially wormy can also be harvested slightly underripe or at least processed right away. The value added activities of peeling, slicing and more are key to getting more apple goodness.

What to do with wormy* apples:

1. If crisp then invest in an apple peeler and corer - they are real time saver - then dehydrate.

Cut away the wormy bits. Some apples that have eaten cores will split in the peeler but for the most part, I find it works though I have less coddling moth here than I did at my last place and more apple maggot. You can see ours at the end of the table in the picture. We call her Suzy. I don't know why but because this implement is named, our kids have developed a real affection for it.

2. Peel (or not if you can get away with it) and cut up to make sauce.

I like to leave lots of red peels to make a lovely pink coloured sauce. After boiling with some sugar and cinnamon, I mash it through a sieve to remove the skins. You can also toss in other fruits. Dehydrating the sieved sauce makes great fruit leather or bake in pastry for tarts.

3. Make and freeze desserts like pie.

4. Make apple butter, chutney or other preserves.

5. or cider - going to get a press soon!

6. Grate with cabbage, add a touch of sugar, salt and mayonnaise to make a yummy coleslaw. Or otherwise use to make dinner

7. Feed to the deer (and then eat deer...)

Last night, we took the above and made number 6 with half the cabbage and a few tart apples - that's the San Michele x Red Rock Mammoth f1 cross heading for the second year in a row(!!)  - and used some other apples to make some turnovers for dessert.

Any other great ideas for apple preserving?

Here's a great link on preserving apples from local kitchen blog


*wormy: Obviously there are wormy apples and then there are wormy apples. Some are just too far gone. Destroy by crushing or some other mechanism wormy apples will lower populations of the pest. I get some apple maggot here or at least something that tunnels under the skin in multiple locations but less coddling moth which I used to get in the city. Maybe next year I'll try traps. Also I don't get scab but I do have some sort of core rot that is more of a problem with the pears (and the apples if I don't process fast). Obviously they might be too wormy to rescue which is why I recommend checking on them to find the right balance or ripeness and unworminess.

Finding Hidden Harvest

I have been searching for these people for a while. Sometimes I would hear rumors about folks interested in better utilizing our fragmented urban orchard but I had not been able to track them down or in any way substantiate their existence until Seedy Saturday 2012. Branches bearing a website enticed people with the simple phrase, “Got fruit, want fruit?” were placed among the vendors. I immediately asked the organizers who they were. An hour or so later, they appeared in front of the Canadian Organic Growers’ booth. At last I had faces and names to attach to the idea.

Meet Katrina Siks, Jason Garlough and friends:

Jason and Katrina are on the left with some friends (who I'm sure will do their share of harvesting) on the right.

What is Hidden Harvest?

Among the parked cars, businesses and homes of Ottawa are a multitude of trees that flower and bear fruit or nuts only to unceremoniously drop to the ground and be raked up for disposal. At the same time, organizations like Just Food are looking for ways to improve the availability of good quality food for everyone in the city including those in need.

Connecting this disconnect, Katrina and Jason are creating a hub where tree owners, volunteer harvesters and community groups like the Ottawa Food Bank can work together to share the bounty.

How was this idea born?

Katrina, a self confessed outdoors type, become inspired to be involved in community forests while listening to Merrickville's Diana Beresford-Kroger talk about the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a non-profit organization that collects and archives native tree genetics from the wild. Diana wishes to conserve the genetic diversity of rare trees and plants including those that give medicine and food.

Jason was born on a farm where trees provided fodder, fuel, protection and food. He was puzzled when he arrived in Ottawa to discover that many urban folk saw trees – especially those that bear fruit – as a nuisance. After all, innovators are coming up with creative ideas to incorporate more food production into the city such as proposals to build multistoried, vertical green houses. They’re modeling the tree, he pointed out, which not only gives you food but is attractive, cleans the air, moderates climate, and requires minimal care.

They met at a Wild Edibles Course run by the knowledgeable Martha Webber. Though they enjoyed the trips out of the city to collect wild foods, it was even more enjoyable to collect grapes at the allotment gardens and to pick mushrooms from alongside the bike path. Gathering apples from old trees to make into cider, including one near the Canada Revenue Agency, got them thinking about all the other underused fruit and nut trees in Ottawa.

The idea of an Ottawa based project like Not Far From the Tree Toronto had been bubbling for some time. It just needed some people with the time and energy to do the organizing. What better time then when the city was facing the loss of up to 25% of its tree cover to the Emerald Ash Borer. Could what replaced these old trees help to feed the city instead of merely shade it? Before embarking on such an investment, a structure needed to be in place to care for the trees.

How does it work?

Through their website, tree owners, organizations, business and other interested parties can post about their needs and wants. “I have an apple tree.” “We’d like to host a harvest event” “Me too!” They will help connect together the right people and provide trailers, pickers, tools and training. The harvest will be weighed and sorted with 25% going to the owner, 25% to the volunteers, 25% to the nearest in-need agency and the remaining 25% making it back to Hidden Harvest for processing to help raise funds for the organization. 

This year, they are looking for lead harvesters to coordinate harvest events along with tree owners(s) and other volunteers in 3-4 neighbourhoods in Ottawa to start off. The locations will largely be selected based on volunteer support. 

Don’t have a tree? No problem as they will be researching tried and true cultivars to sell in the Ottawa area to be available sometimes this summer.

Tell me about the award from Awesome Ottawa.

It’s hard to explain what the Awesome grants are without resorting to the word awesome as the common thread for these one-time 1000 dollar grants. With this extra cash, Katrina and Jason plan on buying some bike trailers to help tote around their tools and harvest.

So when does it start?

The city of Ottawa has expressed their support and provided them with an inventory of 4000 known edible fruit and nut trees growing on city land including various apples, serviceberry, cherries, gingko – yes the smelly ones, Turkish hazel and more. The first harvest event is planned to collect serviceberries in June.

If you want to help, go to the Hidden Harvest Ottawa to register your trees, talents, community organization or interest and stay tuned for more details. You can also like them on Facebook.

Maple Syrup means Spring*

It may not be the official calendar date for the beginning of spring but early on Tuesday with mist laying heavy on the ground and geese flying over head, I could feel a change in the air.

The sugar shack showing through the early morning mist.

For a week, the sap has been rising in the maple trees as the temperatures crept and even leapt above 0C.

On a previous sunny day, you can see the sap dripping from the tree.

Gardening partner started a fire in our inherited evaporator. The kids gathered round.

The previous owners made this crafty invention which is an evaporator/smoker depending on how you place the chimney. In this picture, the boiling pans are removed.

The sun burned off the mist brining not the drizzly day we had been promised but one shining with beautiful golden light. We are nearing the sweet spot of spring when temperatures warm but before the biting bugs come out.

Sap gets boiling.

Sap was added to the evaporator. For those not in the know about how maple syrup is made. The trick is to boil it down the slightly sweet sap into a thick sugary concoction. It takes approximately 40L of sap to make 1L of maple syrup.

My kids thought it looked like a volcano here.

After boiling down all day, we brought a couple pots of near-syrup indoors to finish the job. I have about 4L of maple syrup to be bottled and stored. This whole adventure will begin again sometime next week, weather holding.

* These are pictures from last week. This week there is almost no more snow and temperatures in the summery range of 26C. Crazy!! We probably boiled down the last of the sap for the year, today.

***

Urban tapping: There are some beautiful maple lined streets. Those trees are well branched and mature meaning lots of sap production. I have this fantasy of these blocks getting together for sugaring in the spring. Tapping supplies can be gotten inexpensively on the various seller sites but make sure you get food grade plastic, cast aluminum or something else that isn't so antique it contains lead. Or you could make your own with a hollowed out staghorn sumac stem (some people are allergic to this shrub) and a milk jug.

Not Far From a Tree Toronto organized an urban tapping: They blog about the ups and downs of this sort of project.

Harvesting for the Holidays Monday

Today we harvested our Christmas tree from the small group of spruce planted, I think, for that purpose. Most are a bit overgrown so work better as an animal refuge rather than as a holiday decoration. My girls told me we'll have to plant some more. Great idea!


Youngest is holding the top of this young spruce affected by spruce bud worm.

Other things you can do with woody debris (that is not part of the Walnut family unless you plan on using it around a planting that is jugalone tolerant) from your yard:

1. Use it to start a compost pile. Criss cross the branches for the base to improve drainage.
2. Build a brush pile, in a damp spot if you are concerned about fire, as an animal shelter. Note that you will probably shelter things that eat your plants too but the diversity is good right! Besides, in the city, rabbits mostly ate my weeds. I think they were on to something. EcosystemGardening.com uses this system to recycle invasive Norway Maple.
3. Dig a trench and pile them in, covering them with soil. They will rot down creating an organic rich bed. Especially useful in areas with thin, poor soil. See hugelkultur in all its variations. Here's a nice one where they show a lasagna style bed built with sticks.
4. Bushy branches are great as pea sticks and the thicker ones make a nice trellis. Some lovely examples at Allotment Forestry.
5. Large branches can be used to edge a path and small ones can be laid down like wood mulch to be crunched underfoot.
6. Bundle them up and innoculate with mushroom spores, place in a damp spot. Let me know how well this works!
7. Use as kindling than use the ashes as ammendments for soil. Safety concerns include: wood that has been contaminated with chemicals, heavy metal uptake of trees, making the soil too alkaline. I'll have to let you do your own research on this one.
8. Use feathery pine branches as protection for plants less tolerant to hard freezes and oscillating temperatures. They will help hold on to the insulating snow.

P.S. Yes, we're still harvesting vegetables:


My littlest making her happy, funny face while eating Purple Peacock Brocokale intended for dinner.

What to do with my Harvest Monday?

Here is the second picking of apples from one of my six (I think?) apple trees. These seem to be early, thin skinnned, juicy and large apples. They come from an old tree that would be quite large if it hadn't been topped some time back. The apples would be wonderful to eat out of hand if it wasn't for the birds pecking at them and the odd bug damage. As it is, they look fantastic. And these, my friends, are ORGANIC apples. Not a spray has touched their gentle faces or shielding leaves. I have done nothing to this tree so we can thank the previous owners for their fine care, and this tree for its fine apples.


Not sure what is going on in this shot: one kid didn't want to look up because of the glaringly diffuse light of a cloudy sky, the dog was chillin' and the other kid was distracted by something 'over there.' But did you see the apples?

My problem is what to do with them all. They aren't storage apples so please post your favourite freezing/canning recipes. I like baking so go wild.

Apples and other dangerous Harvest(s) Monday

I've shared with the bugs. I will share with the critters including deer. And then we will feast on the bits that remain. This tree is close to ripe now.

A hint of autumn was in the air when I made my first batch of apple sauce yesterday but not before braving the bald headed hornet. Actually I didn't come face to face with them but my poor niece did. I just hope that the now eradicated nest build at head level in the apple tree isn't the thing she remembers most about her trip to Canada.


I asked the name of the tree that we got the large, early maturing soft and delicious apples and the previous owner answered: "This is an old tree." So that's their name folks: Old Tree Apples.

We are also dripping with ground cherries. I bought these starts at a local organic nursery and I asked what variety they were and got 'Ground Cherries' as an answer. They are not partial to the searing heat we've been having or the mini-drought which thankfully was broken by a nice soaking yesterday. Other than eating out of hand, anyone have some good recipes?


Some sort of ground cherry that has been getting sunburnt over the last week. Still lots of life left in it though and it's smothered with fruit.

Related to the cherry in the husk is the tomatillo. I suppose these are almost salsa verde ready but not quite ripe enough for me yet -



- and their dangerous cousin, the Litchi tomato or Morelle De Balbis as it is known in French.


It's a pretty plant. In my garden, only reaching about 3-4 feet though I've heard stories of tree like monsters.

Unripe berries equiped with the same spines that cover this plant.


It's a weed in some places but here we 'just' get ripe fruit. Certainly not something I'd like to step on while trapsing around the garden.

I really like the flavour though some are less partial. I also like the fruit Sunberry (another tomato cousin) which is sweet and can be eaten out of hand unlike Garden Huckleberry but I know there are some who aren't fans of this fruit either. Well were on the subject, I like eggplant. Doesn't everyone?*


Todays tomatoes lining up for the cutting board.

That's a small list of the harvests this week which included herbs, summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, greens, and much more. What I'm really looking forward to is the first of the melons! I have hopes for next Monday.


For the interested, the weed perennial Clammy groundcherry. The berries are not ripe yet but this originated from Yuko's Open Pollinated Seed and she tells me they taste yummy. They will cover the ground rather like Chinese Lanterns and also like them, the Colorado Potato Beetle seem to prefer them so might be a useful trap crop.

* Okay so not everyone likes eggplant. I figure it's because they haven't had it lightly battered and fried until it turns creamy inside and crispy outside. So good.

Making Maple Syrup by a Novice: Boiling

We started late, only put in ten taps and had variable weather. The buds on a silver maple broke the day after we finished with temperatures on the rise. Still we collected a fair amount of sap.Friday was a beautiful day to start the fire in the sugar shack.


Getting the fire going.

We inherited a sugar shack with evaporator pans and the whole bit but I have friends who boil theirs outside in a big pot on what is essentially a camp fire, and others who collect small quantities from their urban tree to boil up on the stove top. This does create a lot of sticky steam so not recommended for large amounts. I wonder if anyone has done this on their BBQ/outside cooking station?


Me adding some fresh sap from that day.

I'm no expert. This was my first time but the trick seems to be that you want to boil and boil and boil and boil. Then boil some more until it takes on the quality of hot syrup. If left to cool a bit, it will be thickened and ultra sweet like maple syrup of course. Oh and skim off the scum as you go.


Getting closer. It was this beautiful amber colour forever before it thickened into a deep caramel. We finished boiling inside.

Our haul produced a little more than three litres of syrup which was more than we were expecting. Not that I'm complaining. The syrup was left to cool then strained to remove the sugar sand* that accumulates during the boiling process. Then they were bottled for storage in the fridge. You can also can syrup which is what we would do if we had a larger quantity. Once again: the finished product.


Two litres of the good stuff.

* Apparently these are 'minerals and nutrients' which are filtered out to prevent the syrup from looking cloudy and because they taste like sand. According to one source, this is mostly calcium which seems like something you might want to keep but according to another, sugar sand can concentrate lead so you would want to get rid of this. I would like to look into this further but I have far too much bed digging and planting to do today. Woohoo!

Overwintered Harvest Monday

Tops and tails of parsley root

Once again, thanks to the previous owners, I got a harvest today of parsley root. It seems that a number of things thought it a tasty treat too but there was enough to share so I plan on cooking it up for dinner tonight accompanied by a side of parsley leaf salad.

Also our first bottle of maple syrup. The harvests are coming in at last!


Doesn't that pinch of hard work always make things taste fabulous? Actually it was quite zen watching the evaporators for a day in the woods while sugaring.

Sweet Harvest Monday

Is it maple syrup yet? Youngest 'checks' on our first tap.

Having acres and acres of rocky maple bush* is not only pretty in the fall, but it can be productive in the spring. Finally, a first Harvest Monday at my new property. I had hoped to show you a finished bottle of maple syrup but the weather did not cooperate today.

Some of our maple sugar 'bush.'

We started late in the year. The sap has been flowing for some weeks now on and off when the temperature was above freezing. According to our finding of mothes in our buckets, all too soon the season is coming an end. We started with only 10 taps this year though we inherited the equipment to do 4 times that amount, along with a sugar shack. Yay!

The garden partner (he's been promoted**) tapping a tree.

How to Tap a Tree by a novice:

1. Find a suitable tree: sugar maple, black maple are considered very good, other maples follow but you can also tap birch, black walnuts,*** and more I'm sure but the latter few will mean lots more boiling to get some syrup.
2. Drill a slightly uphill hole about 1.5-2 inches deep or stop when you start seeing sap on the sunny side of the tree about drill height.
3. Put in a spile/tap. You can make one with staghorn sumac (thanks Patty for forwarding me this great idea). Hammer it in so that most of the tap is going in to your collection bucket.
4. There are various containers you can use including a milk jug.

By the way, more and more of my city friends are tapping their well developed, beautiful maples or those of obliging neighbours. The room to grow and sunny exposure (relative to most forests) mean that urban maples can be big sap producers!

***

* For some reason, people in the country, call forests: bush. This makes me think of short multi-stemmed hedges instead of the cloud scraping, can't-reach-round-to hug trees found in some 'bushes.'

** He used to be the Non-Gardening Partner but after showing far than the normal interest in growing potatoes and hot peppers then spending weeks in the woods chopping and stacking fallen wood and THEN manning a booth at a seed fair for one of the sellers, I've decided that he deserves recognition for towing the growing line. Oh and he hardly ever complains about me talking plants anymore. Could I have worn him down? Or is growing good food just so much fun you can resist for long?

*** I've heard of other members of the walnut family being tapped as well like butternut. Also there is mention of using hickory though the process is different.

Links

Tapping trees: nice pictures

Info on maple syrup production