Fermented Terroir.

 

As the coals smoldered and the sweet maple vapor boiled away, my urge to get creative with what the land of early spring had to offer was mulling about my mind... before I could create a new offering I decided it was a good time to sample through what remained in the cellar fermentory.

Cumberland Blend 2023

 (bright acid, funky straw, apple skin and tannic bite)

Cumberland Blend 2024

 (softy evolving fruit with restrained acidity and a lingering earthy funk)

I tasted these with thoughts of a possible co-ferment with Maple Sap but was happy to see where both these ciders were sitting. After a thorough batonnage of each, a process where the settled lees are restirred back into the cider I rested them back in their homes for further contemplation.

A fresh start on a maple wine was decided and with a blood moon eclipse happening this week and about 15-20 gallons of sap to play with I decided to start foraging for options. After another mast year of acorns freshly plumped up by the melting snowpack, I decided to utilize them in their abundance. Acorns are a well known source of nutrition by New England foragers and a great way to add tannins to a fermented elixir. Typically someone consuming acorns will soak them for days to leach the heavily tannic compounds from them in order to grind them into flour to use in breads, porridges among various other traditional foods that go back historically to the Native Americans.

I took inspiration from these methods but chose to only soak them for 12-15hrs changing the cold water bath every hour and giving the acorn tea a taste as I observed the tannin levels slowly decrease, but wanted to keep some to utilize it in this batch of Maple Wine.

In order to leach the tannins first you must break the hard shell of the acorns, a simple mallet and towel worked just fine for the small amount I was using. From there I just soaked them in some cold water. Ever hour or so I would take a little taste of the water, strain rinse and resoak over and over till the levels were in a place I thought comfortable for the wine I was trying to construct.

From there I gave them a quick toast over the fire and then filled up a mesh bag with a quart of leached acorns, a handful of overwintered lavender and lemon thyme from the garden along with a handful of tangerine peels and some hemlock tips.

With my drybag packed with flavors and tannins from the landscape I proceeded to boil the bumper sap from the coming moon phase down from 15-20 gallons to a 5 gallon base of sugary sap. In addition to the maple sap, I also took a frame of honey from our beehive and scrapped it into a stock pot where I strained out a majority of the beeswax and added about 2-3lbs of honey from our bees.

As night fell and the bright moon phased through its eclipse, I let the moon juice inoculate overnight in the open air with the bag of adjunct soaking like a tea bag for 12hours.

(photo taken from depositphoto royalty free images)

As daylight broke the sugary maple moon juice was ready to go and ferment in the cellar!

Reflecting on its place in time, in the midst of the trees it was harvested from, gaining character from its rocky granite soil, deep rooted history of its place on earth and with the characteristics of this seasons natural cycles. We will patiently observe as it evolves and expresses the terroir of our humble homestead.

Into a 6 gallon glass carboy it goes as I strained it through a wire mesh colander.

Capped the carboy with a airlock and brought down to the cellar. Then topped off later that evening with a gallon blend of fresh syrup and maple sap and more salvaged homestead honey to fill the headspace. 

From there it was off, bubbling away, fermenting those sugars within 24 hours, as the wild airborn yeast from our homestead starts the evolution of our next wine.

With the buds barely breaking and plenty of syrup in our reserves, I used the leftover sap to soak our shiitake mushroom logs to assure that none of our precious maple sap goes to waste!

With the buckets cleaned, the spigots sanitized and seedlings ready to sprout it was time to call Maple Sap Season 2025 a wrap!

Final haul for this season was around 7875ml or 2.08 Gallons.

Not including the Maple Wine or the refilling of the half bottle in our fridge currently.

All corked and ready for the cellar, gifting and trading.

With weekly snow squalls, balanced by the occasional 60 degree sunny afternoons, the crocuses and daffodils are showing themselves as well as the tulips and iris'.

Speaking of showing themselves, the Localrootz family made it into Portland to kick off April with a stellar performance by Bella White @ One Longfellow Square!

Another great performance and extra special to be able to attend with not only my lovely wife but our music loving 8yr Hazel, who pushed us to get there early to be front and center for an inspiring show!

Our happy lil patch of Katherine Hodgkin Irises have bloomed too!

So long March, hello April... though April showers have continued to be filled with more snow squalls and windshield scraping then we had hoped for... but the seeds are sown in our cellar and perennial pruning and garden tool organizing has been in full effect.

Spring optimism blows through the winter doldrums...and I for one am here to embrace it!

Sprung projects and sprouting beds.

 

So it would not be spring in Maine without an abrupt weather event to humble us early garden go getters. This year it was a sunny 62˙ day followed by a 26˙morning with a blanket of 2 or so inches of snow ! 

The garlic looked a little confused but I knew it was tough enough to handle natures odd method of watering. 

About two weeks later, we are really sizing up nicely ! 

A groundhogs view... I did find what appeared to be some deer nibbles on a couple of the outer stalks of garlic, but it appears the information that deer and most garden munching animals do not like garlic is true because the culprit has yet to take another bite since the original test nibbles ! Time will tell. 

An eye catching birch tree being overtaken by a good case of birch brackett fungus that I stumbled upon during a landscape assessment session.

With Spring now in full swing and Summer creeping up it was time to tackle the long list of projects. First on the agenda was clearing a large portion of the overwhelming brambles that have overtaken the area between our raised bed gardens and the shed. Its a prick of a job, that required some leather gloves and a little fire to burn the cane trimmings. I did some research and apparently well pruned canes produce far superior fruit in a greater abundance. From my observations they have not been pruned in many years and have spread rapidly. I decided to spend a day or two pruning the majority of the runners and to leave the largest and healthiest canes that are growing along the edge of our lawn and the soon to be orchard section of the homestead. The idea is that over the next few years of pruning and training the canes,  I hope to create a living fence line with the spiny thorns that will deter some animals from waltzing over into the orchard and the idea of a few buckets of blackberries will never be a disappointment either.

While I was busy pruning away at the canes, another project was also underway. This project had a couple of steps the first being my job. Acquire a barrel with some nice aesthetics. I chose this old wine barrel from a local source and with a few simple tools I converted this barrel into a rain barrel.

Part two of the rain barrel project required some outsourcing. After getting a few estimates we chose a reputable company called the Gutter People to install some aluminum gutters with the idea of keeping water away from our foundation. The added bonus of the project was the addition of a rain barrel system for the homesteads watering needs. 

After grading the front portion of the house and laying a couple feet of weedblocker down then covering with a few hundred pounds of drainage rock the initial part of the project is finished.

The barrel works great to water the garden... initially Im just using a hose to troubleshoot the flow of water from the barrel. Eventually I plan on laying an underground polytube to move the water from the barrel to the raised beds, but for now Im happy with the results and the use of a hose will help me fine tune the correct path for the upcoming underground irrigation system.

All the pressure is directly from gravity, here you can see a nice stream of clean rainwater flowing from the barrel.

I was surprised that I was even able to get a bit of hand watering done using my garden sprayer, but honestly the best scenario is going to be utilizing a soaker hose. I plan on moving forward with the underground system in the next couple weeks and will update the process better when all the pieces fall into place !

Another growth update, the purple passion asparagus bed that was planted 3-4 weeks ago is popping up with asparagus spears at a rapid pace. This year it is best to just let the spears fern out and establish a strong root system. Its tough leaving it alone but the idea of having a well established asparagus bed for years and years to come helps quell the urge ! 

Tulips are blooming.

The salad greens bed is starting to germinate and fill in...

Plenty of peas are reaching for the warm afternoon sun... with 77 pea plants we should have plenty of shell peas and sugar snaps for the fourth of july !

With the evening temps still lingering in the mid 30˙s Ive been keeping a couple layers of row cover over the beds to help them along as temperature warm and the plants size up.

The bees are doing well and its been great to see them soaking up the local pollen around the homestead. 

Pictured above is a bit of excess comb that was built up around the feeder after a stretch of rainy weather along with the empty queen cage. The queen has been laying eggs and the workers have been busy drawing new comb and capping the brood to establish a full fledge colony. Ive been doing a weekly inspection and am always amazed at just how much work these little guys can accomplish.

Stay tuned for a thoroughly documented hive inspection as the temperature warm up and the bees get more comfortable with me poking around.

Here is a shot of the hive sipping some sugar water solution on a rainy cool morning. The sugar water provides a nice food source for the colony while they get themselves established. As the landscape blossoms and pollen becomes more abundant  I will be removing the food source and letting them rely on their own foraging skills to keep the hive well fed.

Another new project that I started last weekend after attending a workshop up the road in Norway at the Center for Ecology-Based Economy or CEBE is a shittake log. The class was specifically about how to inoculate logs with mushroom spores. Above you'll see my take home example of a shittake log. The basic principal is you drill multiple holes in a "host" log.  Shittakes grow best on oak. Inside the holes you force a sawdust mixture of shittake spawn into the freshly fallen oak log. After inoculating all the holes you simply cover the inoculated holes with beeswax and wait. A typical shittake log can take up to a year to fruit but once you see mushrooms you can expect a good supply for up to six years ! I have always been intrigued by the world of fungus and this class stoked that inner flame. With the abundance of mushrooms that pop up around the homestead I foresee much more fungus related projects in my future including a hefty dose of research and classes on foraging !

In fact immediately following the workshop I met up with a friend of mine who is also an arborist  and we dropped a few maples.  The reason behind dropping them were many. One reason was to open up some sun space to create a small area for fruit trees and also to free up more growing space for the soon to be tomato beds. If the tomato beds do well in their new location this year, then I will be constructing a greenhouse in that location next year... at least that is the plan for now ! The other reason was simply to restock the firewood supply for next winter... and with my new found knowledge of mushroom inoculation I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself acquiring a small batch of oyster mushroom spawn and inoculating another round of maple logs from these recently dropped trees ! More on this project in coming weeks.

So thats whats been happening over at the Localrootz Homestead ! Im anticipating a very productive weekend coming up and will update you as I get more accomplished.

Upcoming Project List
Establish and Construct Tomato Beds
Buck and Process Maples for Firewood, Mushroom Cultivation and Chipping
Finish Trimming Brambles
Complete Underground Irrigation Project
Construct Rock Wall Raised Beds in Front of House
Inoculate more logs with Mushroom Spores
Construct Rock Wall Herb Garden

Well Im sure Im forgetting some things but that ought to keep me busy for the next couple weekends and weeknights. Stay tuned...