Garden Improvements 2016

Rough plan view of garden and improvements, more or less to scale

We installed the garden in year two on the site, that would have been 2014.  Basically that involved designating a space, installing the five 4 foot by 8 foot raised beds, on contour, and filling those beds with topsoil.  The soil profile on the home-site is 2 inches of topsoil, atop five feet of clay, almost clean enough to throw pots with straight out of the ground, resting on sand, almost as fine as powdered sugar.  In short, it is not great soil as-is for a vegetable garden.  This year so far, we have added about 4 cu. ft. of compost to each of the raised beds; call that a wheel barrow full in each.  Now though, we are getting a bit more ambitious.

There are a few reasons why we are getting more ambitious, and why we are perhaps a little impatient in making our garden more productive.  First of all, our diet has changed pretty radically over the course of the past two years, for reasons I may go into in detail in a later post, but for now suffice it to say that it is for health-related reasons.  This past year we have got a better handle on what we put in our mouths, and we want to grow more of that food ourselves, organically.  Secondly, in partnership with a friend, we are going to raise a few meat chickens this summer and into fall; if allowed, chickens can be hell on a garden.

So, the two biggest improvements to the garden for 2016, are:

• bigger garden beds (cross-hatched areas in the sketch), not raised in the conventional sense, for the growing of root vegetables, squashes, and other produce I'm sure (Geri does the detail work regarding the plantings), and,
• fencing to exclude the chickens from the garden during growing season.

Other improvements are:

• two "herb spirals" (see circular crossed-hatched areas in the sketch), actually these are more like herb concentric circles; think of a round layered wedding cake with three layers, and,
• the addition of 8 cu. yd. of screened top soil.  Because of the heavy clay soils in situ, and our desire for a productive garden in the near term, I will till the cross-hatched areas, top-dress with the top soil, and re-till.  We will plant into that prepared soil this year, and then continue to build the soil organically.

Before picture, facing east; north is to your left

Yesterday was planning day, to include development of the layout pictured above, and preparing the garden for today's work.  Today is tilling, top-dressing, and re-tilling day.  Hopefully we will be planting late afternoon into early evening.  The next big undertaking will be the design and installation of the fence.  I will keep you posted.

Thanks for reading, and kind regards,
John

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p.p.s. soon, this blog will be ported over to our new website, and the name of the Facebook page will change to Primal Woods; more on that as the date approaches

2016 Maple Syrup Season Lessons Learned

This season was disappointing in some ways, and a grand success in others.  On the disappointing end of the spectrum, is the low yield this year.  This low yield was due to a confluence of factors, some within our control, and some not.

1. We got into the woods late, we tapped late, as our process was not yet ready for sap.  We started tapping, and collected the first sap, on the 28th of February, all 100 taps were not in until March 3rd.
2. The weather did not cooperate very well.  We had a couple of decent snows, but it warmed up so quickly that the snow melted in a couple of days.  In prior years we had used snow to keep our sap cool until we could get it processed; no such luck this year.  The result of insufficient cold storage was that some sap never made it to the evaporator.
3. By March 13th I was evaporating the last of the sap, and there was no sap flow favorable weather in the 10-day forecast.

So for us it was a two week season, as opposed to the usual four to six weeks, and in that two weeks, we had five days of no sap flow, between March 1st and the 5th.  The short story is, we ended up with about a quarter of the syrup that I had been planning for.

On the grand success end of the spectrum, is everything we learned, and the enjoyment of doing the work and sharing it with our community in Michigan, on Facebook, and with all of you here on the blog.  Based on what we learned, I anticipate that we will do much better in the spring of 2017.

To ensure that we actually do better in 2017, we will be making a number of improvements to the process this year, based on the lessons learned in the table below.  I have highlighted in yellow some of the key things that did not go well, and in green some of those that did go well.  Solutions have not yet been identified for all of the problems, but Geri and I met and have already decided that while some things will stay the same, there will be some changes for next year.  We decided to:

• not tap more trees, we will stay at 100 taps
• expand the capacity of the Half Pint; specifically an arch extension kit and pan will be added, which can increase evaporation rates by up to 65%
• add a combustion air blower to the Half Pint
  
  (together these two modifications to the Half-Pint should take it to 100 tap capacity)
• improve water management in front of garage/sugar house
• put a wood chip/pea gravel "floor" in sugar house
• and we will not finish the syrup in the Half Pint; we will draw it off when it is "near syrup," and finish it in pans over propane burners

These decisions have mostly to do with what it would take to go bigger than 100 taps.  It would take a larger evaporator than the Half Pint, and the evaporator I have in mind would require a larger sugar house; there would probably be a need for some labor help, more buckets and taps, more sap handling and syrup finishing equipment, etc.  That is simply more than we want to take on, while at the same time ramping up the Sawyer and Soaper businesses.

The decision regarding how to finish the syrup has to do with the fact that temperatures at the Half Pint draw-off are relatively unstable, especially when drawing off, which is to say the temperature can climb to well above 219°F.  If the temperature climbs above 219°F the syrup is too dense, and if the syrup is dense enough, 68 Brix or above, the sugar can precipitate out after it is bottled.  Not good.  In my view, a cause of the temperature instability is the small capacity of the evaporator, and another is that the heat under the Boiling Pan cannot be quickly modulated.  In any event, there is too much risk in burning the syrup, so we are changing the process to ensure we produce great syrup, first pass.

I will leave it at that for now.  If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments; I respond quickly.

Please "follow" the blog, and Like and Follow us on Facebook.

-- John, 09 May 2016

(See the Process Flow Diagram at http://swmichiganhomestead.blogspot.com/2016/03/maple-syrup-process-flow-diagram.html)

2016 Maple Syrup Season Lessons Learned
Process Step	Lesson Learned	Comments
	What did not go well?
0 Process Management	Need to develop an evaporator log sheet based on checks per 8 minutes	White board worked well, but not a permanent record. Fix it for 2017.
0 Process Management	Pallet flooring was better than nothing, but unsafe	Melting snow and rain, plus condensation from evaporation. Fix it for 2017.
0 Process Management	Equipment cleaning is an issue	Investigate for 2017.
0 Process Management	It was very wet and muddy at the front of the sugar house	Fix it for 2017.
0 Process Management	Personal hygiene facilities needed	Using the house is okay for now; when more help is required we will need facilities.
0 Process Management	We were not ready, enough	Develop timeline for 2017 set-up.
0 Process Management	Being tapped in Feb would have resulted in much more sap/syrup	Develop timeline for 2017 set-up.
0 Process Management	Too many trees, not enough evaporator	Expand evaporator capacity in 2017; Consider Half-Pint extension, combustion air blower, propane-fired finishing evaporator.
0 Process Management	Freshness of sap is KEY	It should be like looking through water; milky sap has gone off.
0 Process Management	We were not ready with pricing, labeling, marketing
1 Obtain Necessary Equipment & Supplies	Needed to get the evaporator earlier for construction and installation	Adjust plan for 2017 accordingly.
3 Tap Trees	Need to mount the inverter, stable and dry, in/on the Ranger	Fix it for 2017.
5 Sap Handling	A barrel lifter for the 30 gal barrels to/from the back of the Polaris would have been handy	This may not have been required had we had enough evaporating capacity, or enough storage (275 gallon tote) capacity.
5 Sap Handling	More 30 gallon barrels	These may not have been required had we had enough evaporating capacity, or enough storage (275 gallon tote) capacity.
5 Sap Handling	Electric sap pumps would have saved time (look at solar powered (12VDC) well pumps)	Investigate for 2017.
5 Sap Handling	The 30 gallon barrels move around too much in the back of the Ranger	Fix it for 2017.
5 Sap Handling	The funnel/filter was not well secured to the top of the 30 gallon barrels; it would move around and even come off altogether	Fix it for 2017.
5 Sap Handling	Definitely need labor for collecting if we go bigger	Not going bigger in terms of taps for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	Need to manage condensation; it was getting wood and equipment wet inside the sugar house	Investigate for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	We do not seem to be getting as much syrup as I expect from a given amount of sap. Is it true? If so, why?	Investigate for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	The process of removing foam is messy; what can be done?	Investigate for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	The measuring wire for pan depths could have been longer; Geri's hands got hot using it	Fix it for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	Wood needs to be in sufficient quantity, local to the sugar house, and of correct size	Fix it for 2017.
6 Remove Water from Sap	Size of evaporator; plan for 3 gallons per day per tap "worst case," and plan to evaporate it in 20 hours of operation	See expansion plans for 2017. Use this rule of thumb for later years.
6 Remove Water from Sap	More, and DRY wood (see YouTube "Maple Syrup with Skip Drake 42 min 1920x1080" for 3-step firewood process)
6 Remove Water from Sap	Evaporation on this scale (Half Pint, 5 – 7 gallons per hour) is not truly continuous flow; the syrup/”near syrup” comes off in batches.  It is also typical to go past the “syrup state” of 66 Brix at the boiling point of water plus 7 degrees; density reduction is then required.	Plan for drawing off as “near syrup,” finish under tighter control over propane burners.
7 Syrup Finishing	Need syrup/"near syrup" storage for before finishing/filtration and bottling	Investigate for 2017.
	What went well?
0 Process Management	The regular 6-8 minute process checks
3 Tap Trees	The 1000W inverter worked pretty well, maybe a little under-powered for the 3/8" drill for tapping	This solution to insufficient drill power from battery powered portables, will not scale to 1,000 taps, but it's good for 2017.
5 Sap Handling	The Polaris Ranger was indispensable	Also used in process step 3 Tapping Trees.
6 Remove Water from Sap	The pan depth measuring wire worked extremely well and was convenient
6 Remove Water from Sap	White board for recording evaporation process management
6 Remove Water from Sap	Good lighting is a must	The string of 5 LED lamps worked very well in the sugar house.
7 Syrup Finishing	The filtration and canning unit worked well
7 Syrup Finishing	Reducing density process worked