The Mad Gardener of Bowlus

The second batch produced just under three gallons of Maple Syrup, 2 gallons 3.5 quarts to be exact, quite the harvest for just five days of sap! Minnesota's constantly changing spring weather has its advantages with snow, ice, freezing temps one day and warm sunny weather the next! I started the boil down late Wednesday night (03/17/2021) and finished Sunday night (03/21/2021).

The 68 gallons of maple sap boiled down to just over two gallons of syrup!

I am tracking the daily collection, of sap, here!

Sugar content was near perfect, as tested with a maple syrup hydrometer! Now its on to the next batch of sap!

The clones continue to grow, not roots yet but that takes several weeks! The apple trees are starting to show signs of life too! Based, on what I have read, apple trees are the most difficult to clone and take the longest to get roots.

While the crazy weather changes, this week, felt a bit like a mad roller coaster it did cause the maple sap to flow! From March 2, 2021 to March 9, 2019 we collected 24 gallons of sap and then on March 10-March 11 we collected just over 12 gallons! March 10th it was cold, raining, and sleeting and having more than enough room in the pails I skipped harvesting.

Sap flows when day time temps are above freezing and night time temps fall below freezing!

If you think Minnesota only has four seasons, think again!

Always a good idea to start seed planting early! Otherwise you may not get the seeds you want due to limited quantities. This list will likely grow over the next couple months but wanted to do an inventory!

Seeds Kept from Last Year

As time goes on I plan to keep more and more of the previous years seeds for the next growing season. Starting out small and slowly will scale up!

Last fall I collected, dried, and stored purple beans to use for planting in 2021. Even though I purchased heirloom seeds I wanted to be certain they would actually germinate. What better way than to simply grow them in our indoor garden aka plant lab! The good news is the seeds have germinated and the better news is in a couple months we will have fresh beans to eat!

Here is something that amazed me. Compost piles or in this case a wood chip pile can remain active during the winter. Just three weeks ago we had -25 F temps here but part of the pile is 110 F today! I am sure deeper inside this pile there are even hotter temps!

We tapped the trees on Tuesday, March 2, 2021 and there are at total of four trees tapped. First two days produced just a gallon of sap each day but today there was four gallons! Should boil down to 2.4 cups but plenty of time left to collect more sap!

In spring 2020 I wanted to figure out how to be as safe as possible when camping. For the most part social distancing, while camping, is really easy with one notable exception and that is using the public bathrooms and showers! My small pop-up camper does not have a shower nor is there much room for a portable toilet, not to mention I would prefer not to have something like that inside the camper. I also avoid having too much water in the camper as to avoid water damage.

The "trees" are showing signs of life! Far too early to celebrate yet but signs of life are required for roots to form! Today I also use a foliar plant spray, which is just spraying the plants with liquid fertilizer. Plants can absorb fertilizer via their leaves and stems and this is a good way to give the plants some additional nutrients until they are able to grow roots!

The experiment is well underway!

We gathered branches from the following plants.

Did you know that if you took clippings from fruit trees that it is possible to start new plants? The plants will be clones of the parent tree!

This will be my first year of attempting to do this and as of right now we have identified an apple tree, a crab apple tree, and a pear tree. Will see if I can identify other trees. It is important to use a nongrafted fruit tree that grows well in your climate.

We will be using four different techniques

The very first time, I recall making butter, was back in kindergarten. It was a classroom project and then later my parents did it with me at home. We did it the "hard way" by putting some whipping cream into a quart sized jar and shaking it for 20-30 minutes. Not a half bad way to keep a bunch of kids busy though!

I took the easy way and used my Kitchen Aid Mixer I used the wire Wisk attachment and beat it for 20-30 minutes! It first turns to whipped cream and eventually turns into butter and butter milk!

1.5 Cup Gluten Free Flour
3/4 t xanthan gum if your flour blend does not have it.
1.5 t baking powder
1.5 t baking soda
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 T butter
4 T oil
2 eggs
1.5 t vanilla
1 cup milk

For Cinnamon Sugar: add 4 tsp ground cinnamon to matter
To make sugar/cinnamon coating mix 1/2 t cinnamon with 1 cup sugar

For Chocolate add 6 T unsweetened coca powder

Last year's largest pumpkin weighed in around 137 pounds, which was just about the same size of the year before. This year the biggest one reached 162 pounds! The second largest was 137 pounds and the third largest was 133.8 pounds! I had a total of six pumpkins that weighed in over 100 pounds! Also, it froze early this year so the pumpkins did not do near as much growing as they did the last two years!

Every year I grow large pumpkins! I keep the seeds from the previous years two biggest pumpkins in my attempt to improve the "genetics" and every year I am improving the soil!

Why? Its fun!

Tomorrow I weigh some of the biggest ones! Trust me, they are heavy, I had to roll them onto a sled and drag them!

Not actually the full harvest as I have already been eating squash for the last couple weeks! Also have giving some of it away!

A double rainbow.
Above the gardens did appear.
Twenty twenty a bountiful harvest did bring.
Twenty twenty, a bridge of hope.