Tag Archives: organic

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!

 

 

Day five of beginning a Sourdough Starter. I've used the culled excess to bake these.

Winter on the smallholding

As I am writing this the snow has just taken a break from slowly falling for the third day in a row. It’s not been falling hard, it’s not been a blizzard but it’s still crazy dangerous out there and we are on a self imposed lock down.

Winter has been strange thus far. We’ve had heavy snow and freezing cold as well as entire days where the thermometer is in the plus. That’s how it is now. There was a time, when I lived in the relative flat land of London UK when a sudden warm spell in the winter would be very much welcomed. Now that we are living on what is essentially the side of a mountain the warm spell is just dangerous. The melt is going to freeze up, like it had done several times already this winter, and we’ll be  in the middle of an ice field on a significant slope. The first time this happened we had left the truck beside the house and when we tried to move it we got maybe 25m (75 feet) before the truck started sliding sideways. If you have ever been in a vehicle on ice you’ll know how scary that can be. We even had the chains / spikes on the truck’s wheels, it didn’t matter, gravity and ice won and we slid straight into the forklift forks. It could have been worse, if we’d lost momentum just a few meters further we’d have taken out the boat and trailer.. that would have been really bad.

Suffice to say, ice fields mean we stay hunkered down. Even getting out to the barn twice a day is a challenge. Being inside has it’s perks though. I’ve taken to teaching myself some new skills one of which is learning to cultivate a wild yeast sourdough starter for bread making. Making our lives, and in particular our food systems as self sufficient as possible is very important to me. I don’t believe we will ever be one hundred percent self sufficient, primarily because there are things I can’t grow (like coffee) or won’t grow (like tobacco) here. That’s ok by me. My personal goal isn’t to be completely and solely self reliant, it is to run a healthy chemical free ecosystem that provides most of what we eat and need to live comfortably. That includes generation of a modest income, which i believe everyone needs these days and also actively improving the land for the next generation of our family.

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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.

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Growing Diversity: saving Jerusalem Artichoke seed

Before the ground freezes, and after the stocks have turned crunchy and golden is the time lift and store our Jerusalem Artichoke tubers. These starchy little wonders will liven up your meals through the dark days of January and February as well as add an element of beauty during the growing season, but you already know that if your now reading about how to save the tubers for next season!

Similar to what we look for when harvesting Garlic for seed, you are again looking to save and replant prime specimens. Those that we plant should be those with the positive traits we want to encourage in order to improve our seed stock and harvest year on year.

With Jerusalem Artichoke, this means setting aside those golfball size tubers, that are knob and blemish free. The should not show any sign of blight, insect damage or disease. One you’ve set aside your seed stock you’ll need to store it before it’s time to go in the ground again. Always try and store a small percentage more than you think you are likely to need as with planting there will always be the chance of failure in a few.

For the best chance of a successful storage, you’ll want a container big enough so you can layer the tubers in without them touching each other. I begin with a layer of moist coir approximately 3cm thick and position my first layer of tubers being careful to ensure a good amount of room around them so that they are not going to shift and touch each other. This is very important. By isolating each tuber you are minimizing the risk of contamination. A rotting tuber which contacts another with expedite the rotting process in the next.

After the first layer I cover it with a thick layer of coir, approximately another 3cm to avoid vertical contact between the layers. This process is repeated until all the seed tubers are bedded into and covered with coir. The whole bucket then sits in the ambient storage until planting begins again in spring.

asparagus

Putting the asparagus beds to bed

Kilo for kilo Asparagus consistently rates as one of top performers of the farm. When it’s in season it sells out. That is, by definition, product demand. As someone who spent countless hours over the past year, propagating, planting, weeding, hoeing and harvesting it fills me with pride and pleasure when folks are excited by and buying our veg. Feeling this way, is enough motivation for me personally to grow it.

In our modern society where a trip to the supermarket can supply you with nearly anything at anytime of the year, Asparagus being one of the few hold outs makes it special.  In the south of england, Asparagus season falls in between May and June, an incredibly small harvest season by any standard. Add to this that an Asparagus bed takes four years tending before a first cropping can be expected and it isn’t difficult to see why it is likely to stay a seasonal veg.

After the last harvest in June the plant is allowed to grow to its full potential, the delicate spears transform into beautiful branches and in the late summer and early fall it’s tiny spherical fruits ripen to a deep shade of garnet as the stocks die back transforming to a brittle stand of golden beige. It’s a this stage in the first weeks of December that we put the Asparagus beds “to bed.”

Before the dry stocks are cut back, we weed the bed a final time. Keeping the dry stocks in situ while doing this allows us to easily estimate where on the bed it is safe to dig. The next years growth of asparagus spears are dependent on their crowns sitting just below the surface of the soil and digging weeds too close to them can inadvertently cause damage.

 

garlic all year

Garlic all year round

In all my years I have only met one person who did not like garlic, and she would not even let it in her house, most of us use it in at least small quantities in our cooking. I really do believe that every garden, whether its potted, window or a grand allotment should grow at least some of it’s own. Garlic is easy to grow, tastes great and has a multitude of beneficial properties both for us and for our soil.

Modern scientific research has concluded that regular consumption of garlic has a lowering affect on the levels of  LDL cholesterol, lowers blood pressure and even shortens the duration of colds or flu. Many organic farmers believe that adding the dried leaves of harvested garlic back into the compost further extends the antioxidant benefits to the soils. I don’t know that there is any research proving this, but since benefits aren’t exclusive to simply the bulb, it does make sense to me.

This year was my first commercial harvest of garlic. I was lucky enough to be involved in each step, harvest “seed stock” selection, drying, preparation for market sale, grading seed and planting for 2016. Garlic may be one of the easiest in this regard, but I still learned quite a lot.

Organic Lea’s garlic aim is to have a supply year round, which is possible first by grading the seed stock and then though successional plantings. The largest, blemish and disease free bulbs are first chosen at drying. Once they’ve air dried and the papery outers have formed grading begins.

Grading is the process of breaking the bulb into it’s separate cloves and ordering them by size. The biggest outer cloves (bottom of the photo) are planted out in November here, usually around the fifth of November and over winter in the ground.  These will actually begin growing now owing to the moderate climate in the south east of England. These cloves will stay in the field growing the whole next season and be harvested as the dry garlic and seed stock for the following year. By choosing the biggest bulbs for this planting and doing this year on year you are effectively ensuring the best and strongest genes go forward, which over time will increase the overall size of your garlic bulb harvest.

The second category of grading is for the smaller cloves (middle of the photo) these bulbs are planted in spring and will be pulled early for the sale of “wet” garlic in the mid summer months.

Finally the slender inner cloves (top of the photo) are graded. These are sown in December however unlike the smaller bulbs these will be multi-sowen in the field, or under glass meaning each hole will receive more than one clove. We did this the first week of December in the glass house and planted four bulbs per hole. They’re buried at one clove depth. By sewing multiple cloves in this way we are planting to harvest the greens for fresh use as fresh herbs for salad and soups which will be harvested earliest of all, in the early summer.

By using each of the cloves and selecting them for what suits them best the farm (or your garden) can be producing garlic for year round use. Organic lea is lucky enough to have Thermidrome Garlic as it’s seed stock, originally from France it is a variety that does exceptionally well in heavy clay soils.

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Experimental forage: Hawthorn tincture

For several years I noticed the bright red berries and distinctive leaves of Hawthorn yet knew nothing about it. It’s not that the information about it is particularly hard to find, I was just busy with the abundance of the already known fruits I’d found growing wild.

Hawthorn’s medicinal use is widely documented in many countries. Indisputably one of natures best medicinal plants for cardiovascular issues. Studies have found it successful in treatments ranging from Congestive Heart Failure to Angina and even removing LDL the “bad cholesterol” from the bloodstream.

My introduction came by way of a Eastern European forager who explained to me in limited English and a lot of gestures, that the berry was for his heart. He went though a lengthy description of drying the berries and then crushing them and then finally using his Bialetti coffee maker to produce a tea which his wife and he drank daily. My second discussion of Hawthorn came from two English lady foragers, who simply said “adding it to brandy or gin made an excellent liqueur” Unfortunately for me, they told me so as they were harvesting the last of the berries in late October time.

IMG_20150918_165038Having high hopes for Hawthorn this year, I made it my business to forage for them early. I’ve made a tincture with 70cl of dry gin, two pints of berries and 6 tablespoons of sugar which will apparently take 12 to 24 months to fully mature. It looks stunning in the jar which is good, because unlike other fruits which only need to be in the alcohol for a week or so, Hawthorn soaks for a month or longer.

In researching I noticed that leaves are also used when making tea so I’ve included a good handful in my experiment.  I didn’t top and tail the berries, so I will have to strain sediment, but I’m ok with that!

Most of the Hawthorn I’ve encountered has been canal side lining the towpaths, but on this particular forage, I found it as the main cultivar of a well trimmed up hedge bordering a public common. It was an exciting discovery. Only this week I had been contemplating what my possible options for windbreak hedges might be for the smallholding. Unlike many other foraged herbs and medicines there seems a nearly universal acceptance  of Hawthorn’s effectiveness. I have to say, I am looking forward to taking this medicine.

honey press

Pressing honey

I was very luck last week. I got to take part in the pressing of two boxes of honey from the apiary. Sean Hearn, is the man in charge of all things “bee” at Organic Lea. Through him, I’ve had my first introduction to the style of bee husbandry called “natural bee keeping” which I first wrote about here.

Natural bee keeping is much different than the more commonly practiced or industrial bee keeping, and the more I research different aspects, the more I find myself feeling that the natural method is more to my liking.

Following on from these differences, it should not be a surprise to learn that the process of honey extraction is another area where Sean steers away from the common industrial methods. I remember seeing a program about an off grid couple in the Blueridge mountains in the Appalachian mountain range who had top bar hives. Unfortunately the program was quite light in detail, but the woman did mention “pressing” the comb was the only way they had to release the honey.

I am not a cheap person when it comes to tools, nor am i frivolous. I believe that buying the best tools once is the best investment. When it came to a “honey extractor” I just didn’t like the notion of having a piece of equipment sit around for most of the year because it had only one use. When Sean said I could join the team for pressing, I was very excited but I had no idea how much that afternoon would teach me.

Foremost, wanted to know why Sean felt pressing was a better method than using a centrifuge extractor. I expected it was going to be a similar reason to my own conclusion, that a tool with one use that was used so infrequently wasn’t a good investment but to my surprise this turned out to be quite low on his list.

You see when bees gather nectar, that nectar includes  vitamins and minerals from the plant, the bee process it adding important enzymes and probiotics all in tiny trace amounts. When a bee fills a comb with her honey it is then capped off from the air and it all stays sealed inside.

Harvesting honey requires “uncapping” of the cells. In industrial operations, the uncapped honey gets inserted into a centrifuge which spins with such force air forces the honey out to the sides of the barrel where it drips down into a bucket. The process relies on air. Unfortunately, exposure to air releases some of the enzymes and probiotics. Thus the honey loses a significant amount of it’s original ingredients.

Cold pressing honey relies on pressure to force the honey out of the comb and while it still has contact with some air in the process of reaching the bucket below, this is reduced. Less of those important enzymes and probiotics are lost. Sean, and many other natural bee keepers believe that by retaining as much of these ingredients the honey is closer to it’s natural state and thus nutritionally superior.

I am a honey lover, but that day in the kitchen I tasted something far richer and more complex than even that which I have bought in local markets. It makes me wonder if that might have been the first real honey I have ever tasted?

Perhaps you have heard that honey was at one time considered a healing substance or even a cleanser? I have and I’ve often wondered. It seems logical that honey in it’s purest form was the start of these assertions. Perhaps modern technology, although faster has led us to harvests that may be high in efficiency but falling short on quality.

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Community projects

For the past 9 months I have been a regular volunteer and a trainee at an organic farm in Chingford called Organic Lea. I love them. They offer a space to learn skills and meet people as well as running a box scheme feeds over 300 local families. Over my time with them, one of the things I find most inspiring  is their constant drive to evolve the site.

Since 2001 they’ve had the land and the transformation has been incredible. You can read about this in detail on their website. One of the projects has been a community wine making  and in true community fashion throughout September on Fridays they are accepting grapes from local gardens for processing into wine. For those not interested in wine, the farm also has a community juicing day where people are encouraged to bring their apples and pears along with bottles and help process juices.

How many folks have grape vines or fruit trees even but don’t actually use  the produce? Many. It might be that they inherited a garden or they don’t have the skills to make good wine, aren’t sure about how to use pears or apples or perhaps they don’t have the time. What ever the reason, this project is a complete win:win scenario.