May 2022 | Practical Self Reliance

Birch Syrup (& Wine), Chocolate from Scratch, Spring Foraging & Garden Planning

On the agenda this month: Making birch syrup (and wine), chocolate from scratch, and planting new perennials in our food forest (plus lots of spring foraging).

Spring comes a bit later up here in the north country, and we won’t see our first dandelion blossom until mid-May. Strawberries won’t ripen until late June, and our last frost isn’t until after memorial day.

This extended springtime means that we’ve got plenty of opportunities to finish up on winter projects, and the spring foraging season stretches on for months before temps warm too much for all those tender ephemerals.

It’s a particularly busy time for us, as we’re still busy in the kitchen with all manner of fermenting and canning projects, but we’ve also gotta get seeds started and enjoy the spring weather (even if it is only 40 to 50 degrees most days).

This past month I shared the absolute best rhubarb canning recipes and my favorite recipe for strawberry jam. For the advanced preservers out there, I also explained how to make beef bacon, homemade paneer and how to dehydrate any type of mushroom and how to dehydrate pineapple (because it’s in season and inexpensive at the store right now).

For the foragers, I taught you how to identify Usnea (an edible and medicinal lichen) and Pheasant Back Mushrooms (also edible & medicinal), as well as how to identify and use wild violets and fiddlehead ferns. I also shared some of the very best ways to use morel mushrooms, because I know they’re popping up all over the country (though we won’t see them for a few more weeks).

I explained how to grow wine cap mushrooms (and why they’re amazing) and discussed the difference between chicken & duck eggs (& why I love duck eggs). I also gave a tutorial on how to use a cast-iron stovetop waffle maker and explained the differences between types (historical and modern).

That’s what made it to the blog this month, but it’s just the beginning of what we’re working on here on the homestead.

Chocolate from Scratch

Ever wonder how chocolate is made? You’re not the only one!

My daughter asked if we could make our own chocolate for her 7th birthday…like real chocolate, all starting with cacao fruit (yes, it’s a fruit) and going all the way to a finished bar. That’s a DIY spirit to make this mama proud, even if she did just con me into a bunch of birthday chocolate.

We spent the better part of a month leading up to her birthday processing cocoa, all the way from the sweet fruits to the bar. It starts with chopping open the pods, then fermenting the beans, then roasting, peeling, grinding, tempering and finally you get a chocolate bar.

I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much, we’re not exactly chocolate experts…but it came out darn good! Not exactly economical of course, but there’s no better way to get a little one interested in science than to spend a month making chocolate!

This one’s going to take me quite a while to write up, but I’ll let you know when it’s ready so you can make your own.

Birch Syrup (And Wine, Mead & Soda)

Late April is birch syrup season here in Vermont, though the season comes a bit earlier in much of the country. Birch trees can be tapped for syrup, just like maples, and their season starts right as maple season ends. We take the taps out of our maple trees and put them right into birch to keep the sugar flowing a bit longer.

My kids are actually particular fans of birch season, mostly because it’s so much warmer when you’re tapping. Soil temperatures are around 50 degrees F, which means the snow’s melted and my kids help me out in shorts (rather than the snow pants of maple season). There’s no ice to slip on, and the birds are singing in the trees as you haul sap buckets.

The sap’s a has a bit less sugar in it, but to these kids, it tastes just as sweet…

Lower sugar content means you spend quite a bit longer boiling sap, but the weather’s fine. We get the boiler going, and then tend it in the background while we’re prepping garden beds for the season.

It cooks down in the same sap pan that we use for making maple syrup. You pour the syrup in at one end, and it moves through a series of baffles until it gets to the draw-off spout at the front. You can actually see the progression as it goes from sap to syrup…

It takes around 70 to 100 gallons of birch sap to make a gallon of syrup, so you get your spring workout hauling buckets at the same time.

In the last few days of the season, there’s not quite enough sap to be worth boiling, but there’s still plenty for making birch wine, mead, and soda. Birch mead has been made in the nordics for millennia, and the nutrients in the sap were a natural way to feed the yeast (before modern yeast nutrient powders).

Birch wine was made in the US by some of the first colonists, and you can find it in many revolutionary war era cookbooks. The soda is tasty too, and a lot quicker to make.

I’ll have recipes for each for you before next season. For now, there’s a bunch of birchy ferments going in my kitchen…

Planning A Garden for 2022

Outside of the kitchen, just about everything revolves around the garden this time of year. We’re still getting snow flurries occasionally, but there are plenty of frost-tolerant vegetables that are already in the ground.

Cilantro, parsley, and peas are some of our favorites, but we’re also planting potatoes in raised beds this week since they’re put in about 4 weeks before the last frost. Last year’s potatoes produced around 50 to 60 pounds in each 8x4 raised bed, so it’s definitely worth the effort.

Last year we focused on hot peppers, and we raised more than a dozen different kinds of pickled peppers and fermented hot sauce. Pickled peppers are incredibly versatile, as there are all manner of recipes that can use both a hit of acid and a kick of heat. (From chili to curries, the sky’s the limit.)

Homemade hot sauce is amazing, and fermented hot sauce is even better. There are flavor compounds in peppers that just don’t come to the surface until they’re fermented, and hot peppers like habeneros mellow slightly and take on fruity notes that are nearly indescribable.

I’m hoping to have a tutorial on the process out this summer, just in time for this season’s hot pepper harvest.

This year our focus is strawberries, and we’ve added 10 new strawberry varieties to our garden. Regular June-bearing strawberries as well as everbearing strawberries, plus several alpine strawberry varieties, and pineberries.

All that is in anticipation of our freeze dryer arriving later this spring. Yes, you heard that right, we finally got everything ready for installing our own home freeze dryer. Not only are they great for preserving the garden’s bounty, but they’re also a wonderful way to create your own long-term storage emergency food.

I talk about the importance of having emergency food on hand at all times, and I’ve even reviewed just about every emergency food supplier on the market. Now we’re going to start packing away our families’ favorite recipes at home for a fraction of the cost.

If you’re looking into one before the growing season, now’s the time to order…there’s already an 8 to 10 week lead time on orders placed today. Here’s where you can get a home freeze dryer (affiliate link).

Emergency food aside, freeze-dried strawberries are absolutely phenomenal, and one of the very best freeze-dried foods to store (in my opinion). There’s no better bribe for a cranky preschooler that just won’t get in his pajamas…

What’s Inspiring Me This Month?

Right now, I’m just so excited to be able to connect with y’all on substack. It’s a great platform with a commitment to free speech that’s unparalleled online these days. I’m looking forward to hearing your questions on this month’s Q & A thread, and hoping that we can work toward creating a supportive community here.

Until next time,

-Ashley