We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden. Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water. We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. Genus Acer Species saccharum Common Name sugar maple Form large tree Habit standard Origin North America Light sun to shade Moisture mesic Edible sap for sugar (& inner bark can be used) Acer saccharum is a deciduous Tree growing to 30 m by 12 m at a slow rate. It is in flower from Apr to May, and the seeds ripen from Oct to December. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Insects. It can tolerate atmospheric pollution. The sap contains quite a large proportion of sugar. This can be used as a refreshing drink, or be concentrated into a syrup by boiling off the water, and can be harvested in late winter or early spring, (the flow is best on a warm sunny day after a frost) Yields of 40 - 100 litres per tree can be obtained. The best sap production comes from cold-winter areas with continental climates. The sap contains 2 - 6% sugar, thus about 32 litres are required to make a litre of maple syrup. Self-sown seedlings, gathered in early spring, are eaten fresh or dried for later use. Seeds - cooked. The wings are removed and the seeds boiled then eaten hot Inner bark - cooked. It is dried, ground into a powder and then used as a thickening in soups etc or mixed with cereals when making bread. Interested in Forest Gardening and perennial cropping? Have you seen our upcoming PDC and 10 Week Internships? Our friends at Pfaf have an amazing database of species (UK based);
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
Like us on FB Below for regular updatesStay up to date with customized updates you want to receive
Upcoming coursesArchives
December 2016
Categories
All
|