growing sugar

[MuddyWitch]

The fields where I grew up (heavy clay, Nottinghamshire) were rotated in the old fashioned way (as it seemed in the sixties!) and beet or Mangold Worzels came in the root break. The sugar beet was, as has been suggested, huge! I've no idea how much sugar they produce, they were sent of to Norfolk for processing.

Mangold Worzels are funny looking things & it's said there 95% water, but the live stock farmers would say 'magic water' as the cattle thrived on them all Winter.

MW

[Millymollymandy]

Rosendula - where did you get the sugar cane from?

I got that from eBay. I thought it seemed a little dried out when I got it, but I'm giving it a try anyway. I read somewhere that you can get them from Asian stores, but those kind of stores are really difficult to get to for us - either 2 bus rides to go something like 4 miles, or go in car and parking's really difficult round there. It's something we keep meaning to do next time we're up that way, but we never go up that way

I've seen chunks of sugar cane in Asian stores but I thought you'd have got a young plant - so do you just put a big chunk of cane into a pot and it roots? (I've never thought about how it grows before even though I come from Fiji where sugar cane is big business and my paternal grandfather used to be a sugar cane planter 100 or so years ago back in the good old colonial days!!! ). As kids we used to just chew on chunks of the cane to extract the sweetness but I never really liked the taste.

[Rosendula]

MMM, these are the instructions I'm following. Like I say, nothing seems to be working but I think it's down to me not getting a very good piece of cane.

[Millymollymandy]

Oh that's interesting - you can get those sticks of dried out looking yucca or similar houseplant with wax on one end which you plant like that (I didn't have any success when I tried though!).

You do realise that when it's full size it's a bit tall though don't you? Like taller than you! I do hope you have success as it's really great to try new things like that.

[wolfsong]

If you think sugar beet is tall, try Giant Bamboo, have planted some last year, in 20 years time it'll be growing at the rate of a meter a week.
Yes Seymour does have some advice about sugar making, bear in mind that sugar cane grows successfully in Florida, i.e. tropical/sub tropical climates.
"Cane is tough stuff and full of long fibres, so you either need a lot of strength and a pestle and mortar, or a steel crushing mill."

[p00rstudent]

hello all, i looked into growing my own sugar at the same time i was looking to grow my own bread, nad though a friend managed to blag me some grain to sow, we completely failed to get hold of any sugar beet seed. It is somthing i would still be intrested in having a go at if i could get hold of any seed. but hey ho. Didnt even consider attempting to grow sugar cane as i didnt think we would have a suitable climate in which to grow it. Though if i had more green house space/polytunnel i would be tempted to have a go at cotton but again i would imagine getting hold of seed for that to be a real pain.

[ina]

Didnt even consider attempting to grow sugar cane as i didnt think we would have a suitable climate in which to grow it.

And I think you are perfectly right there... Sugar cane grows in places like Queensland - and from what I remember, the climate there was just a little different from ours!

My parents used to tell me how they made syrup from sugar beet in the war: chop lots of beet, boil for hours on end in a large pot (laundry copper), strain through oat straw, boil resulting liquid for many more hours to reduce to syrup consistency, while stirring constantly. To make sugar from that, you have to go through a few more refining stages (involving the input of a lot more energy...).