Yum. I miss having cane at will. But then again - it's a pain to juice these things. We used to just eat the stalks. Had to buy the juice if we wanted it. LOL.

Shavedmonkey, have a sugar cane cocktail for me! Very tasty juice and with the mill your problems with juicing are solved. Keep on eye on the plants, they take over like bananas, I had some in my garden.

Silvia

A toast to you Silvia! But we will have to wait for the sugar to rise. It starts in November. The tasty cane juice causes you to gulp a cocktail instead of sipping.

Silvia, shall I make your drink with vodka or rum?

Thanks for the toast Shavedmonkey. When the sugar rises and November is the perfect time when is colder, I would use a pineapple or a coconut as a container and go with the rum.:)

Silvia

How are you supposed to harvest these things? I have a patch growing in my yard from the previous winter but I'm not really sure what to do with it! I heard you're supposed to burn it???

Silvia
I have pineapples growing and coconut trees also. Maybe they will be yielding in November. I like the idea.

slopfrog

Don't burn them. cut them in the late fall or winter. That is when they are sweet. Just cut what you need. They dry out quick. Cut near the ground. I'm told that it can reappear for 5 to 10 years.

They burn commercial cane fields to make it easier to get in there and to drive out/destroy all the critters in them. No need for that in a small patch.

Shaved monkey, do you sugar any of it, or just go for the cane juice?

Have not tried to get crystals. Don't know how. Do you have experience with cane? Growing, juicing, making sugar?

I've never tried sugaring it, but basically you just boil the juice and keep skimming off the impurities. I've never grown cane myself, but have had several neighbors who did, and the fresh cane juice sure was a special treat.

I ought to say that one did try boiling it down to sugar but decided that he preferred "long sweetening" to all the effort of keeping an eye on the boiling juice for so long--it takes hours.

You ever think of growing sorghum and making syrup? It used to be made often in Alabama but is much more scarce there now. It was delicious, usually eaten with butter on hot biscuits.

Well Greenie1, It sounds like sorghum might be your next crop. When I got to thinking about a glass of fresh cane juice it got me started. Good luck.