Southwestern Ontario

Hi! First post - just wanted to stop lurking and thank everyone for the inspiration. Collected about a half gallon of sap from a sugar maple on my front lawn in a few years back, and surfed this site to figure out what to do with it. Boiled it down on the stove and it was superb.

Moved to Paris area now, but all I have is oak, hickory and box elders. Planting lots of sugar maples for the next generations, but also tried tapping one of the box elders yesterday just for fun. About a half gallon per day from one hand carved staghorn sumac spile. Starting small, but, if I can make friends with the guy down the road who already has a acres of sugar maples, maybe I can expand... ;)
Cheers

I had good flow on Sunday. Collected 350 litres off of my 90 buckets. As of Saturday morning they were empty.

Nothing really today on the Bruce for me. This week is looking good so hopefully it stays like that. Been a real disappointing season for me so far.

Next 5-6 days look promising in Grey county but man after that shows a week above freezing night and day man I haven’t had much luck with the sap this year hoping this week I can get a decent amount

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Originally Posted by Falloutshelter

Next 5-6 days look promising in Grey county but man after that shows a week above freezing night and day man I haven’t had much luck with the sap this year hoping this week I can get a decent amount

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I feel your pain... Fingers crossed for a great run this week. Good Luck

I'd like to give mother nature a good talking to, to be mindful of all the farmer's, for all the seasons. Lol.

I consider my trees to run poorly. I have a lot of soft maple, probably 60% at least. So far they have given me 4040 USG/3363 IMP. gallons/15271 litres since March 1st off of a little over 2500 taps. Still boiling. Made 137 litres so far.

We had good runs on the 3rd. Also on the 9th and 10th on nights that weren't supposed to freeze, but did.

I agree the 2 week looks stupid after Saturday night. Low double digits and no freezing for a week

[QUOTE=argohauler;394002]I'd like to give mother nature a good talking to, to be mindful of all the farmer's, for all the seasons. Lol.

I consider my trees to run poorly. I have a lot of soft maple, probably 60% at least. So far they have given me 4040 USG/3363 IMP. gallons/15271 liters since March 1st off of a little over 2500 taps. Still boiling. Made 137 liters so far.

Wow that doesn't seem like much sap for 2500 taps. We have collected 2500 USG on 425 taps. Lucky though we have hard maples. I know that helps with sugar content but maybe sap flow as well. I never trust the long range anyway. It has been changing constantly.

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Originally Posted by NextGen

Hi! First post - just wanted to stop lurking and thank everyone for the inspiration. Collected about a half gallon of sap from a sugar maple on my front lawn in a few years back, and surfed this site to figure out what to do with it. Boiled it down on the stove and it was superb.

Moved to Paris area now, but all I have is oak, hickory and box elders. Planting lots of sugar maples for the next generations, but also tried tapping one of the box elders yesterday just for fun. About a half gallon per day from one hand carved staghorn sumac spile. Starting small, but, if I can make friends with the guy down the road who already has a acres of sugar maples, maybe I can expand... ;)
Cheers

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Box Elders are a maple ( also called Manitoba maples or ash leaf maples among other names) and will make maple syrup. Back about 45 years ago, I had 1 sugar maple with 3 taps, and up to 7 taps in box elders. That made excellent maple syrup. Back then we didn't even boil it until near syrup density. We just had 2 large pots on the wood stove in our living room and it slowly evaporated but never a boil. Then as we thought it was getting close We combined it into 1 pot and finished it on the gas fired kitchen stove. If you try that, be sure you keep some windows open to get the steam out. We kept 2 partially open, one each side of the wood stove, for the kitchen boiling, we opened another in the kitchen. We did it well enough that the wall paper never came loose.

Yeah, I don't know why exactly because there are hard maple that are under performers as well. My guess is the soil, mostly sandy with a bit of clay, swampy bush we have. Go up the road 5 miles towards Cayuga to my cousins, with the clay and ravine cricks and it's like night and day how they run compared to mine. Same with friends near Clanbrassil

Im around 1900L collected so far this season since tapping on the 6th. Missed a couple days it ran in Feb. I'm up to 150 buckets now, so 1/3 to 1/4 of what I would hope to collect in a "typical" season. Doesn't look great after Sunday, but it wouldn't be the first time the weatherman is wrong! Here's hoping for a few more weeks of cold nights!