Your orchard is one of the neatest and beautiful ones I have seen. Great job.
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Phil your orchard looks awesome. Your trees look really healthy and I love the mulch walkways.
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I ordered one too Phil. Same reason. Wanted to know what all the fuss is about!
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Blue skies, 60F forecast and low wind: looks like today’s the day to spray oil and copper with NuFilm.
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I lost the blooms on my red barren peach tree due to the cold weather in Ohio. But my four foot apricot tree has about thirty flowers. My crest heaven and June gold peach trees are in bloom. My plum tree and apple tree are in bloom.
My Cummins order came today and tomorrow my order from 39th Parallel should arrive. Should be able to do some planting and grafting this weekend.
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Now that is cool
Busy collecting and cooking birch syrup. It is our first year so no taste test yet. That is my husband attaching the pail.
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I decided to get Mason bees this year to help with pollination and these little guys and gals were delivered today. Three hatched in transit but I fed them a little sugar water according to the companies instructions. Hopefully with a few more warm days the apples will be in bloom.
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Yesterday we did our first big mowing of the spring, everyone was out working in the yard. A lot of work, but it looks good now all cleanly shorn.
Since it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, I got the tractor out today, first did some bush hogging of some areas, especially the parts that I cleared out last month.
After that I had to hook up the grader blade to push a big brush pile that was in the middle of one of our garden plots that was going to be plowed.
After my wife helped me hook up the plow, I did a quick setup and got it ready to turn a few plots. It was about 7:00 when I started, so I had to get after it. I turned a couple plots above and below the barn area. Now, it 's about 8:15 and getting dark, and I still needed to do the last big plot down by the house. Since it’s such a big plot, I actually turned on the lights to finish it. Never plowed in the near darkness, but it was pretty cool to be out there turning the sod by spotlight. Finally got it done and parked the rig in the barn, it got quite the workout today. I’ll have to do the fourth plot tomorrow between the rain showers.
The near full moon was coming up over the hills as I was walking back up to the house, with the crickets and frogs croaking in the warm spring evening, with the scent of freshly cut grass and turned sod in the air. Quite an experience for the senses.
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This is the first I have heard of birch syrup. I had to google it. I learn something every day, lol.
What is birch syrup used for?
It takes an average of 110 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of birch syrup. Maple syrup , by comparison, averages 40:1. The sap, containing only 1-1.5% sugar, looks and tastes much like water right out of the tree. Concentrating the sugar to 67% by evaporation gives the syrup its color and distinctive flavor.
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Birch Tree Syrup & Water - About Wild Alaska Harvest’s Birch Products
](Birch Tree Syrup & Water - About Wild Alaska Harvest's Birch Products)
Search for: What is birch syrup used for?
How do you make SAP birch syrup?
What does birch sap taste like?
At its peak, the sap runs clear. Birch sap makes a refreshing drink with just a hint of sweetness, almost like water with fresh lemon or lime, but without the tartness. … It can be made into sparkling wine, fermented lemonade and birch sap syrup, which tastes similar to maple syrup, but more complex, tasters say.May 21, 2012
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I hope you update us on what you do with it! I have seen “birch beer” in the grocery store here, but there is no real birch syrup in it, just corn syrup. 
i bought some when up in alaska 3 yrs. ago. its good but not as good as maple syrup. I’ve heard yellow birch makes a better syrup than white. a few local maple tappers have been experimenting making it from yellows but so far haven’t sold any to the public. st. lawrence nurseries sells a quick growing silver maple called sweet sap that puts out more sap than the sugar maple. if i had the land, i would plant a few acres of them. they don’t need as well draining soil as sugar maples do and are tappable in 1/2 the time.
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That’s interesting, we have yellow birch on our property. There’s an old one that has a diameter of 3’, you don’t see them like that anymore. Yellow birch is interesting to cut for firewood, it has a wintergreen scent when fresh cut.
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i find a lot of chaga on them. 
wood makes nice furniture. should get some taps and collect some sap to try and make some syrup. should be running good right now. tree that size puts out a lot of sap.
We are almost done collecting, once the sap starts to look a little cloudy and the leaf buds start to grow it is time to stop and plug the holes. We tapped 8 trees and get 6 gallons morning and night, it has to be collected twice a day as it has a refrigeration life of 3 days so we need to either boil it or freeze it.
I agree with moose71 that it is not as sweet as maple syrup. That said I have not tasted the final product, we have only reduced it by 3/4 on our outside stove and then we freeze it and will do the final reduction in the house as at this point the chance of scorching increases. Apparently you cannot boil it as hard as maple syrup or you alter the flavour, it needs to be reduced at a temperature lower than boiling point.
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Our section of birches does have chaga as well. There is not much and now even less as someone has been in hacking at our trees. We are finding birch trees that have been chopped with an axe in the attempt to get the chaga. Apparently it is a hot commodity.
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riding the logging roads here in spring and fall, i can get 50lbs on a good morning. tried selling it but no one was interested in a large amount. some sites have it for $60 a lb. but I’m no marketing expert. i drink the tea daily and put ground chaga in my coffee grounds also.
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Yesterday, I saw a plum curculio on my flavor grenade tree, while my cots are in shuck fall, so I did my first insecticide spray of the season. It broke my heart to see a dying lady bug after I finished spraying…
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