Teaching Brother Joe How to Tap a Birch Tree

[Ashley Cawley]

The sap is rising strong here in Cornwall, just returned from a walk in the woods with my younger brother Joe (10). I thought I'd show him how to Tap a Birch tree for the first time, he enjoyed it greatly, collecting it in his cup and giving it a taste :)

I taught him how the tree's draw water from the ground and need to create sap so that they can grow, creating buds & leaves etc. on his own he made the relation between the sap being like "the blood of the tree" and how they need air & water much like us.

Nice to see kids linking things in their own minds; linking us with nature, shows them we're very much a part of it & not separate.

Of course with the blood remark we soon got talking about drinking blood! lol.. and I explained yes you can infact drink blood... but that'll be for another day when he's older. :p

[Bambii]

Mind the vampires!

I thought of the same thing before i read your post, drinking tree sap is pretty much drinking the tree's blood.

[fish]

ant chance of some how-to's on tapping birch?

[Ashley Cawley]

ant chance of some how-to's on tapping birch?

Already done! :) I've done a written guide to my low impact method of harvesting which is back on the main website, here's a link: http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/wild-food/tapping-the-birch-tree-for-sap-in-march-collecting-birch-sap-a-clean-sugar-rich-water.html

I also did a video how-to a couple of years ago, here it is:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RuLlECSPfM

[Ashley Cawley]

In this video Ray Mears taps the Birch and makes some Woodsman's Tea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQra3hVAHg

[Nature Unleashed]

Some nice videos here Ash, :)

What is the best time (from/till) to drink the sap?

[Ben Casey]

Cool vids there :)

[Ashley Cawley]

Some nice videos here Ash, :)

What is the best time (from/till) to drink the sap?
From:As soon as you've got it from the tree
Till: depends how you keep it (room temp / refrigerated or frozen).

[Nature Unleashed]

From:As soon as you've got it from the tree
Till: depends how you keep it (room temp / refrigerated or frozen).

Happy days, is there a certain time limit in the year that its best to get it? e.g. march and april, or is there more or less time? Like now for instance would this be good to get now?

Cheers

[Ashley Cawley]

Typically the first two weeks of March, but it depends on where you are in the country and what the weather is doing, if it's colder it might be a little later. I can't say I've tried tapping the Birch tree much after that, so I don't know how successful it would be, if you try now and get anything let me know.

There's an article about it here: http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/wild-food/tapping-the-birch-tree-for-sap-in-march-collecting-birch-sap-a-clean-sugar-rich-water.html

[Nature Unleashed]

will do, cheers mate :D I will try it this weekend whilst we are out camping