Spile removal
We took out our spile today
due to the warm weather.
I think when we tap next year
we'll do it sooner.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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comment 1
I thought you could continue to get maple syrup up until you no longer had freezing temps at night. Down in Maryland, we are still having freezing temps and another snow storm coming this monday. How warm is it up there?
Comment by
Rebecca
— Fri Mar 9 12:44:26 2018
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Sap run
In my experience, the tree heals the wound before the sap run is done most times. I could tap again, but figure one hole per tree is probably as much as I want to bother our maples. 
Comment by
anna
— Fri Mar 9 18:06:09 2018
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Sap Collecting
Earlier is better! We don't have many maples here, but we have tons of black walnut trees. The sap from them makes a nice syrup, too. My first year experience last year was this: I waited until the 'signs' were right, then tapped the trees. Overnight, we had gallon jugs full of sap. So I thought "this is easy." Well, I had waited too late. The weather warmed and even though we still had freezing temps at night, the sap stopped flowing OVERNIGHT! The trees healed and corked off production. New taps were ineffective. So, "Next Year" as we gardeners say....
Comment by
Tim Inman
— Sat Mar 10 09:23:15 2018
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