Tag Archives: Norway

Birch sap in a jar

Invigorating, confusing joyous learning

One of my favourite things in life is learning new things. It is when I feel my most alive, when I feel my eyes are widest and the world seems, more amazing somehow. I expect there is a percentage of folks out there to whom things come easily, gifted folks who are “naturals” at certain things. I am not one of them.

Learning is rarely straight forward and most times I find myself excited, confused and exhausted all at the same time. I also fail, a lot. I’m not bragging that I’ve gotten things wrong, I certainly never set out with a mindset of anything other than success, it’s just the way I learn best. Over the last four decades I’ve come to accept that this is how things go. I’ll happily tell you I am bound to make every mistake acquiring a new skill might entail, but so long as I am not repeating those mistakes and getting stuck, then in my mind at least, it’s a win.

With that in mind, so far in 2017 there has been a lot of learning along side some marginal gains. Our first succession sowing of heirloom and heritage beans are off to an amazing start, the tomatoes are tentatively stretching up out of the seedling soils and the sap collection from our Birch is in the final quarter of what might be the shortest season on record! The same unusually high temperatures that are helping the seedlings yawn to life has also put the bushes and trees into overdrive and “bud burst” is just around the corner. I’m guessing we’ll start seeing leaves in 48 to 72hrs. I love this time of year, the rush of life and sense of urgency in the awakening of things. Conversely, it also means our new venture into Birch Syrup is at risk of being cut short this year which will probably mean more trials next year!

 

 

2017 Season, First day of spring

Spring and new things

The first day of spring saw us greeting an articulated lorry parked at the base of our drive. We’d not expected it for several more days but were more than happy with it’s early arrival. It was delivering what quite possibly the only Maple Syrup evaporator to ever ship to Norway.

As luck would have it our good friend Darren is visiting us from the UK right now. Along with being my other half’s best friend he’s also an engineer so getting to build a thing neither of them had ever seen in real life was exactly the sort of challenge they enjoyed.  As you might imagine they managed just fine, and even made sure it was easy to disassemble should the need ever arise.

Those of you who are fascinated by trees (like i am) will know of course that the Sugar Maple is not native to Norway and you may also know that the Norwegian Maple does not share the high sugar sap of it’s more famous brethren. We’re actually taping Birch. Birch sap has a sugar content of roughly 1% which is half of that of Sugar Maple. This is the primary reason Maple Syrup is “a thing” whilst Birch is not. More accurately perhaps, it is why Birch was not,  it is now. Say what you will about technology and our advancements, it’s because of these specifically of Reverse Osmosis technology that the harvest of Birch Sap for the making of Syrup is now viable.

Birch Sap itself has been a popular “crop” in colder climates throughout history, Russians and Estonians used it for the making of beer and spirits, North American native peoples would drink it as a spring tonic. I believe that Norwegian Birch Syrup can become a product that chefs and people who throw dinner parties want in their pantry. I have the same hope for Birch Wine, but I’ve less reservations about that since decent wine sells itself. Only time will tell though, and we’ve a steep learning curve ahead of us!

Our production this year is more of a sampling than anything, we’ll be the Norwegian “pioneers” of the product so getting people to try it is a big part of this year’s goal.  No one has produced Birch Syrup or Birch wine commercially here and very few people have even done so for themselves. In a way this is fantastic, a wide open opportunity and people appear to be curious. Fingers crossed!

This season we will harvest Birch Sap from 60 trees in out “home pasture” This should mean approximately 500 litres of sap which we’ll then use for syrup and wine to trial as products. I’ve had Birch Syrup from Kahiltna Birchworks the Alaskan Birch Syrup pioneers and Birch Wine from the lovely folks at Organic Lea and know that making an excellent product is possible, it’s just the learning curve to get there! I’m confident I can make the wine, I’ve a few years of successful wild wine under my belt it’s learning to use the evaporator that may be tricky.  Anyhow, it’s warmed up to +7 so it’s time I go collect the sap!

 

 

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Closed loop systems and why they’re important

In the last post I mentioned the term “closed loop” in referring to how I would like our farm to run. A closed loop system is one that is self sustaining, ie nothing needs to be brought in from the outside in order for it to continue. This self perpetuation is the same principle people often refer to as “self sufficiency” and you can find versions of it in use in places that practice permaculture, in forest gardening and many organic farms.

Nature itself is a closed loop. She needs nothing from us to go on being self sufficient. Unfortunately, we humans usually need and want elements in addition to what is naturally occurring.  To meet our own needs initial investment or installation of outside elements is necessary.  For us, that means vegetable beds, chickens, turkey, bees and eventually a micro flock of sheep.  Although the addition of a these elements may not sound so large a change, they are. Fortunately by doing each step slowly and in turn and with some forethought it is possible to make each addition into a closed loop so that after the initial investment the cost is one of labor.

Even the addition of vegetable beds impacts the land. Everything we grow does so by withdrawing of nutrients from the soil. It is not enough to simply decide to grow your own food. While doing so is good, it’s not self sufficiency. To be self sufficient you must at the very least consider and replenish those lost nutrients. Best practice in this would be to aim to input more nutrient and organic matter into your growing beds than you take out. Doing so would increase on the soil life incrementally each year so that ultimately the land is healthier year on year. Makes sense, right? I think so.

In our case we began the replenishing cycle this autumn before the veg beds had even been dug or the first seeds even planted. In fact, my very first project here when I arrived in October was the construction of a pair of compost bins and a leaf litter pile. Composting on site is an easy first step to creating a closed loop for vegetable production. Leaf litter piles, which eventually rot down to what is refereed to as “leaf mold” is an excellent addition to soil for the retention of moisture. Our land is sandy loam, with a higher percentage of sand than loam,  so anything we can do to promote retention of water for our growing veg is worthwhile.

One of the helpers I will be introducing into the farm life cycle will be the perennial Bocking 14 Comfrey a well known plant famed for it’s fertilizing properties in the organic world. Comfrey is such an important player in the plans for our farm that I’m going to write an in depth piece on it this year, but I digress.

Creating a closed loop for the vegetable production is essentially as simple as ensuring all of our vegetative growth from grass clippings and twigs to weeds and eventually  the plants themselves gets recycled via compost. In the spirit of returning back more to the soil than what we have taken out, we will be adding Comfrey leaves, nettles and leaf moud.  Overtime this cycle increases the fertility of our land, which increases it’s productivity allowing not only us to thrive but for the farm itself to do so as an ecosystem. Happily the closed loop system can be implemented with our livestock and to most every aspect  of our food system on the farm.

Kitchen Garden covered for winter's arrival.

A new year and a new chapter

The snow is blanketing the slopes and the clouds in the valley are hanging at what seems to be just above head height from my chair. I’ve made my first stock of the year from vegetable peelings and chicken bones, and I’m planning that by the end of the year this simple healthy base food will be all part of a closed loop system here on the farm.

Our goals for this year include raising chickens for meat and eggs, keeping turkeys, growing 50% of our own vegetables and establishing a herb bed. These may seem like the goals of an underachiever to some, I’ll freely admit that my natural inclination is to declare my intent to do “everything” but to make things easier for my other-half I’ve promised to understate my ambitions everywhere including here. It’s not natural for me, but hey, it can’t hurt!

In order to facilitate our plans for 2017 we have been doing some solid ground work. He has been building me a glasshouse from scratch. It’s a time consuming process. Getting the “free” windows was the easy bit. Since then, he’s scraped them all, re-puttied the seals, cut and hauled trees from our wood, milled wood to spec, built walls in sections, oiled, primed them and begun the gables. This week he hauled the second load of logs to our mill, it took 3 straight days. They are very big logs and among other projects they will also be the main frame for the glasshouse. At just under 50 square meters the glasshouse is going to be bigger than our cabin. He’s put in a lot of work to help ensure our growing has every advantage possible.

To compliment the glasshouse I’ve dug and mulched 10 out door beds, which will be our “kitchen garden” at 10m x 1.25m they give us approximately 125 square meters of growing space for the semi-hardy and hardy vegetables that will make up the bulk of our diet. I’ll tell you what, after three months of eating shop bought and mostly non-organic vegetables I am really excited to get back to eating food we know the sources of. Come on Spring!

Our cat who also made the journey to our new home in Norway. He's settling in now and likes to ensure he knows what's going on. Here, he is "owning" the logs that are going to be milled this spring.

Our cat who also made the journey to our new home in Norway. He’s settling in now and likes to ensure he knows what’s going on. Here, he is “owning” the logs that are going to be milled this spring.