How to Plant Sugar Cane

Planting Sugar Cane

Select healthy sugar cane plants. Sugar cane is easiest to find during the harvest season, in late summer and early fall. If you can't find sugar cane plants at your local garden center, it can often be found at roadside stands and farmer's markets. Asian groceries also often stock sugar cane plants. Look for long, thick stems, which are more likely to produce healthy new plants. The stems have joints, and a new plant will sprout from each one. Keeping this in mind, buy as many stems as you need to produce the size crop you want.

Split the sugar cane stems into foot-long pieces. Leave three to four joints per piece, to make it more likely that each piece will produce a few sprouts. If the stems have any leaves or flowers, go ahead and remove them.

Dig furrows in a sunny planting spot. Sugar cane stems are planted horizontally on their sides, in four-inch deep furrows, or trenches. They need full sun, so choose an area that isn't shaded. Dig furrows long enough to fit each piece of cane you're planting, and space the furrows one foot apart. Use a spade or hoe, rather than a shovel, to make it easier to dig the furrows.

Moisten the furrows. Use a hose to lightly moisten the furrows to prepare them for the sugar cane. Make sure the water has drained and there are no remaining puddles before you plant.

Plant the sugar cane. Place the stems horizontally into the furrows. Cover them with soil. Do not plant stems upright, or they will not grow.

Wait for the sugar cane to grow. In the spring, usually in April or May, shoots will start to grow from the nodes of the stems. You'll see them breaking through the soil to form individual sugar cane stalks, which will grow quite tall by summer's end.

Growing and Harvesting Sugar Cane

Fertilize the sugar cane with nitrogen. Since sugar cane is a type of grass, it thrives on nitrogen-rich fertilizers. You can fertilize the sugar cane plants with standard grass fertilizer, or go for an organic option: chicken manure. Fertilizing just once, when the sprouts first emerge, will help the sugar cane grow strong and healthy so you'll have a good harvest in the fall.

Weed the plant bed regularly. Sugarcane requires little maintenance except for weeding. Weeds could choke the new sprouts before they have the chance to grow. Constant weeding is necessary until the canes grow large enough to produce shade and choke harmful weeds on their own.

Monitor for pests and disease. A number of pests and diseases can impact sugar cane. Pests such as borers and insects are more likely to impact a crop when they experience waterlogged conditions, while diseases can cause fungal growth and rot stocks. Check your sugar cane regularly for pests or rotting, and take preventative measures to discourage pests and diseases whenever possible. Selecting sugar cane varieties that are resistant to diseases and viruses known to affect crops in your area is one of the best pest management strategies. The application of controlled amounts of appropriate fungicides or pesticides may help prevent the propagation of a pest or disease within your crop. If you do spot a plant that appears to be infected with pests or a disease, remove it immediately.

Wait until fall to harvest. Sugar cane plants should be left to grow for as long as possible before the first frost of the year. If they are left in the ground after the first frost, you will not be able to use your plants to make sugar syrup. If you live in a place with long, cold winters, play it safe and harvest your sugar cane by the end of September. If you live in a place with mild winters, you may be able to let your sugar cane grow until late October. If you live in the United States, you can check your area's frost dates by visiting http://www.almanac.com/gardening/frostdates/states.

Use a machete to cut the canes close to the ground. The mature stalks will be tall and thick, similar to bamboo, so simple garden shears won't cut it. Use a machete or a saw to cut the sugar cane as close to the ground as possible, so you'll be able to make use of as much of the plant as possible.

Don't hack into the ground. You don't want to damage the roots of the established sugar cane plants. If you leave the roots in the ground, your sugar cane will come up again next year.

Strip the leaves from the cut sugar cane. Be sure to wear gloves since the leaves are quite sharp. Use them to cover up the planting bed. The leaves will act as an organic mulch that will protect the sugar cane roots over the winter. If you don't have enough leaves to cover the whole bed, use some extra straw to finish the job.

Making Sugar Cane Syrup

Scrub the stems. After a season outside, they'll have mildew and dirt on them. Use warm water and a scrub brush to scrub dirt and debris from the stems until they're completely clean.

Chop the stems into one-inch sections. The stems will be quite stiff, so a meat cleaver is a better tool for the job than a knife. Chop the stem into small sections, then chop those in half so you have a pile of small pieces of sugar cane. If you had a commercial sugar cane press, chopping the stems wouldn't be necessary. On large farms, juice is extracted from sugar cane using huge, heavy presses. There is no equivalent machine suitable for home use, so the chop-and-boil-method is used instead.

Boil the sugar cane pieces in a large stockpot filled with water. The sugar is extracted through a long process of boiling the pieces down for about two hours. The sugar water is ready when it has the same flavor as a piece of raw sugar cane. You'll have to taste-test it to determine when it's ready. Another clue is to look at the sugar cane pieces. After a few hours, the color will turn to a light brown, which indicates the sugar has been extracted. Check the pot every half hour or so to make sure that the pieces are still covered with water; if not, add more.

Pour the sugar water through a strainer into a smaller pot. Use the strainer to catch all the fibrous pieces of sugar cane. You don't need these anymore, so you can discard them.

Cook down the sugar water to turn it into syrup. Boil the sugar water until it cooks down significantly and takes on the texture of thick syrup. This can take anywhere from one to two hours, so be sure to monitor the pot to make sure you don't overcook it. To test whether the syrup is ready, dip a cold spoon in the pot and check the texture. If you like your syrup on the thin side, you can remove it from heat when it still easily slides from the back of the spoon. For thicker syrup, remove it from heat when it coats the back of the spoon instead of slipping right off.

Pour the syrup into a glass canning jar. Place a lid on the jar and allow the syrup to cool completely before storing it in a cool, dry place.