Like your information always helpful would like to see more on walnut syrup.i didn't know you could use so many different trees.thank you Tim from north GA.
We don't have mature black walnuts here. I forage them in the woods, but I can't tap those...but there is an article on it here from Teri at Homestead Honey. I wish I could give you more information on the when's and hows of those, but I don't have any personal experience there: https://homestead-honey.com/beyond-maple-syrup-tapping-black-walnut-trees/
Just make sure there are maple trees... We knew someone who intended to sugar, bought 10 acres, and found there weren't enough trees to make syrup. You don't need A LOT of trees. I put out about 22 taps and we get between 6 and 9 quarts per season which is enough for us.
Thank you, I have a garden to put in first. Id like to get some chickens and geese, maybe a couple pigs, a sheep to sheer and spin. Wow! Syrup may be a while down the line. 😁🍁🍂
I know I'm WAY behind, but I'm going to try tapping some maple trees from the suburbs of Chicago next year. You really make it sound simple Ashley.
Off topic.... raised beds. I have more 2x10's but they are stained and varnished. Is that a problem or should I plane them down on the dirt side! Thank you!
Everyone has a different opinion when it comes to stain/varnish on raised beds. Some people insist that all that stuff is totally food safe and it's fine, and even insist that you need to use it to help your beds last longer. Others insist that the boards should be completely untreated inside and out. No one I know has actually tested this in any way.
I don't have any concrete advice here for you, as everyone seems to have their own bias here. Personally, my beds are all untreated. That said, if you're in a suburban back yard and the beds are going right next to a fence that's been varnished...it's washing off or leaching the same stuff that the beds would be into the soil. But maybe that's nothing. It's hard to know.
I love your articles and truly, I had never even thought about canning lemonade concentrate - even though we drink lemonade a lot in the summer! It just never crossed my mind! Thank u for pointing out something so obvious that I just hadn’t seen before! 😁
When you harvest the bark it's just pieces that are falling off anyway, not the inner bark. It should come away VERY easily, as in it's not really even attached hardly at all. Since it's going to be shed anyway, you can harvest it anytime (you can also pick up freshly fallen pieces from the ground if clean and very fresh).
Today we built a greenhouse, and I planted onion seed starts, using the potato onion seeds I saved from last year’s surprise blooms (potato onions rarely do this, I’m told, though it’s happened to me twice).
Quite a bit like maple in that it's sweet, but it has it's own aroma (so not "mapl-y") Here's a description from Homestead Honey:
What Does Black Walnut Syrup Taste Like?
At first taste, black walnut syrup is intensely sweet, with a flavor that is distinctly different than maple syrup. I describe it as earthy and nutty; if maple syrup was the violin in a string quartet, I would characterize black walnut syrup as the cello. It’s just a bit deeper and more complex.
Black walnut syrup can be used in place of maple syrup – on pancakes, yogurt, fruit, etc. Personally, I find the flavor to be so unique and distinctive that I reserve my black walnut syrup for fresh eating, rather than baking or cooking.
That brings back memories of my Vermont Grandparents taking me to their friends sugar house as a kid. They gave me a plastic cup of warm syrup with a healthy shot of whiskey in it and a sugar house donut!
Loved this article. Good info for the future. We are starting very small with our homesteading on 1 1/2 acres of land but once we can do all we are able here, we hope to do more on a bit more acreage in the future.
Nice! It only takes a few trees...but they have to be a pretty big to make it work. It can be done on an acre...if it's exactly the right acre, and there aren't many. Hopefully you end up with good trees on future acreage.
"If you’re just collecting a small amount of sap for fresh use, you can literally trim off the tips of a low-hanging maple branch and tie on an old bottle to collect the sap. It will run just like that, no tap required"
This sugar season has been quirky here in central Massachusetts. Off again/on again kind of season. I wish I could post pictures here as I'd show you my low cost, homestead set up. The evaporator you show is a beauty! Mine was an Italian army meat tray I got for $35 from Dirt Cheap. Been using it for a couple of decades.
Nice! Our sugaring season is into "off again" mode up here. We're about 10 pints in, and I think it'll be a few weeks before it's warm enough to boil again.
Thank you for teaching me where my food comes from! 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gal of syrup?!! I have acquired such a respect for food since I have learned what it takes before it enters my stomach. Sounds so silly, but being 53 & not knowing any of this is so embarrassing. I just learned how to plant a seed last year. I was flabbergasted when I realized I had to wait 4 months to see a small beet. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and resources.
You're not the only one. Before I moved to Vermont I assumed maple just poured out of trees ready to go...you know, like molasses or pine sap. The fact that it's nearly water that's cooked and concentrated for hours is totally mind boggling.
There aren't any pines that produce syrup, to the best of my knowledge, but many pines are tapped for resin that has (or had) all manner of uses historically. Paints, gum, glue, soap, remedies, etc.
You'd need to know the exact variety and then do a bit of research there, as each type would have different resin value.
LOL! Welcome to homesteading! I'm always a season or two ahead of myself. I love maple sugaring because it's at a (relatively) slow time for me. Sugaring usually ends when the daffodils come up and the maple trees' buds turn red and open. I love it when winter is turning into spring. I work to keep ahead of things by rototilling the gardens in the Fall and planting garlic in Oct/Nov. We yearn for "green" and keep a four season, all glass room attached to the living room to help us. I find myself in the curious position of harvesting lemons and maple syrup at the same time. It took years.
Hi Ashley, I loved your article on tree tapping for Syrup. I've lived on the west for most my life, I would love to learn this craft.
I just wanted to ask you if you've heard of geoengineeringwatch.org? These days there's many toxins in the snow that falls, might invade the syrup? Just a friendly heads up question.
That's a really great question! There are toxin concerns with maple (and other tree syrups) but they're not generally in the sap, it's more a question of processing.
The tree itself is an incredibly efficient filter, and you can actually use it as a filter that's fine enough to remove 99% of bacteria from drinking water.
In terms of contamination in snow or rainwater, if that's serious (which is easy to believe), then tree syrups are the least of our concerns. I'd be more worried about leafy greens that are something like 90% water. Most plants bio-accumulate in their leaf matter, rather than fruits or wood, which is one reason fruits like gooseberry and aronia are used in runoff locations from roads/etc. The fruits are clean, but the leaves pull all kinds of nasty out of the water/soil.
Anyhow, in terms of contamination in syrup, the main issue is how it's processed. Old school buckets used lead solder, which leaches into the sap if it's left in the bucket too long. Modern methods use tubing, and leave the tubing strung in the sun between the trees for 5 years at a time before replacing it. They break down, and put all manner of endocrine disrupting chemicals as it runs.
We use buckets that are either modern buckets galvanized and made with food safe solder, or more recently, we're switching to all stainless steel buckets (expensive, but we're small scale).
Then when it's boiled, on a commercial scale they use reverse osmosis to concentrate the sap, and add in chemical de-foaming agents...and all manner of other fun stuff. So yes, there are things to worry about in syrup, but it's not the sap itself. If you make it conscientiously, you know what's in it and I think that's what matters.
Good heads up Laura! Especially timely in the wake of the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio. I don't worry too much about toxins in the sap as the trees purify the water coming in to the cells. Nevertheless, if I was downwind of an event like that train wreck, I'd at least smell the sap to make sure it's not stinky with vinyl chloride.
Like your information always helpful would like to see more on walnut syrup.i didn't know you could use so many different trees.thank you Tim from north GA.
We don't have mature black walnuts here. I forage them in the woods, but I can't tap those...but there is an article on it here from Teri at Homestead Honey. I wish I could give you more information on the when's and hows of those, but I don't have any personal experience there: https://homestead-honey.com/beyond-maple-syrup-tapping-black-walnut-trees/
We are going to look at a house with 10 acres and A LOT OF TREES!
This really made me ready to get a move on! Get out of this rental and into our own place.
Nice! I hope it works out for you =)
Just make sure there are maple trees... We knew someone who intended to sugar, bought 10 acres, and found there weren't enough trees to make syrup. You don't need A LOT of trees. I put out about 22 taps and we get between 6 and 9 quarts per season which is enough for us.
Thank you, I have a garden to put in first. Id like to get some chickens and geese, maybe a couple pigs, a sheep to sheer and spin. Wow! Syrup may be a while down the line. 😁🍁🍂
I know I'm WAY behind, but I'm going to try tapping some maple trees from the suburbs of Chicago next year. You really make it sound simple Ashley.
Off topic.... raised beds. I have more 2x10's but they are stained and varnished. Is that a problem or should I plane them down on the dirt side! Thank you!
Everyone has a different opinion when it comes to stain/varnish on raised beds. Some people insist that all that stuff is totally food safe and it's fine, and even insist that you need to use it to help your beds last longer. Others insist that the boards should be completely untreated inside and out. No one I know has actually tested this in any way.
I don't have any concrete advice here for you, as everyone seems to have their own bias here. Personally, my beds are all untreated. That said, if you're in a suburban back yard and the beds are going right next to a fence that's been varnished...it's washing off or leaching the same stuff that the beds would be into the soil. But maybe that's nothing. It's hard to know.
Thanks Ashley.
I love your articles and truly, I had never even thought about canning lemonade concentrate - even though we drink lemonade a lot in the summer! It just never crossed my mind! Thank u for pointing out something so obvious that I just hadn’t seen before! 😁
You are quite welcome!
Thank you for the timely article. Should you only harvest shag bark while the tree is in a dormant state, or can you harvest the bark all year round?
When you harvest the bark it's just pieces that are falling off anyway, not the inner bark. It should come away VERY easily, as in it's not really even attached hardly at all. Since it's going to be shed anyway, you can harvest it anytime (you can also pick up freshly fallen pieces from the ground if clean and very fresh).
Thank you for the information.
Today we built a greenhouse, and I planted onion seed starts, using the potato onion seeds I saved from last year’s surprise blooms (potato onions rarely do this, I’m told, though it’s happened to me twice).
Nice! Sounds like you got a lot done!
But what does walnut syrup taste like? Haha 😆
Quite a bit like maple in that it's sweet, but it has it's own aroma (so not "mapl-y") Here's a description from Homestead Honey:
What Does Black Walnut Syrup Taste Like?
At first taste, black walnut syrup is intensely sweet, with a flavor that is distinctly different than maple syrup. I describe it as earthy and nutty; if maple syrup was the violin in a string quartet, I would characterize black walnut syrup as the cello. It’s just a bit deeper and more complex.
Black walnut syrup can be used in place of maple syrup – on pancakes, yogurt, fruit, etc. Personally, I find the flavor to be so unique and distinctive that I reserve my black walnut syrup for fresh eating, rather than baking or cooking.
That brings back memories of my Vermont Grandparents taking me to their friends sugar house as a kid. They gave me a plastic cup of warm syrup with a healthy shot of whiskey in it and a sugar house donut!
Yup, sounds about right!
Loved this article. Good info for the future. We are starting very small with our homesteading on 1 1/2 acres of land but once we can do all we are able here, we hope to do more on a bit more acreage in the future.
Nice! It only takes a few trees...but they have to be a pretty big to make it work. It can be done on an acre...if it's exactly the right acre, and there aren't many. Hopefully you end up with good trees on future acreage.
"If you’re just collecting a small amount of sap for fresh use, you can literally trim off the tips of a low-hanging maple branch and tie on an old bottle to collect the sap. It will run just like that, no tap required"
This is fascinating, and news to me!
Yup! Super easy. Many people use plastic water bottles and just tie them onto the ends of branches.
This sugar season has been quirky here in central Massachusetts. Off again/on again kind of season. I wish I could post pictures here as I'd show you my low cost, homestead set up. The evaporator you show is a beauty! Mine was an Italian army meat tray I got for $35 from Dirt Cheap. Been using it for a couple of decades.
Nice! Our sugaring season is into "off again" mode up here. We're about 10 pints in, and I think it'll be a few weeks before it's warm enough to boil again.
Thank you for teaching me where my food comes from! 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gal of syrup?!! I have acquired such a respect for food since I have learned what it takes before it enters my stomach. Sounds so silly, but being 53 & not knowing any of this is so embarrassing. I just learned how to plant a seed last year. I was flabbergasted when I realized I had to wait 4 months to see a small beet. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and resources.
You're not the only one. Before I moved to Vermont I assumed maple just poured out of trees ready to go...you know, like molasses or pine sap. The fact that it's nearly water that's cooked and concentrated for hours is totally mind boggling.
We cover ours very lightly with soil at the start.
Hi, I live in the mountains with more than 50 varieties of pines on our property, can you tap/sugar pine trees?
There aren't any pines that produce syrup, to the best of my knowledge, but many pines are tapped for resin that has (or had) all manner of uses historically. Paints, gum, glue, soap, remedies, etc.
You'd need to know the exact variety and then do a bit of research there, as each type would have different resin value.
LOL! Welcome to homesteading! I'm always a season or two ahead of myself. I love maple sugaring because it's at a (relatively) slow time for me. Sugaring usually ends when the daffodils come up and the maple trees' buds turn red and open. I love it when winter is turning into spring. I work to keep ahead of things by rototilling the gardens in the Fall and planting garlic in Oct/Nov. We yearn for "green" and keep a four season, all glass room attached to the living room to help us. I find myself in the curious position of harvesting lemons and maple syrup at the same time. It took years.
Hi Ashley, I loved your article on tree tapping for Syrup. I've lived on the west for most my life, I would love to learn this craft.
I just wanted to ask you if you've heard of geoengineeringwatch.org? These days there's many toxins in the snow that falls, might invade the syrup? Just a friendly heads up question.
Kindly, Laura🤠
Hi Laura,
That's a really great question! There are toxin concerns with maple (and other tree syrups) but they're not generally in the sap, it's more a question of processing.
The tree itself is an incredibly efficient filter, and you can actually use it as a filter that's fine enough to remove 99% of bacteria from drinking water.
MIT Study here: https://meche.mit.edu/news-media/mit-engineers-make-filters-tree-branches-purify-drinking-water
Video of it in practice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG-rNHgFxhs
In terms of contamination in snow or rainwater, if that's serious (which is easy to believe), then tree syrups are the least of our concerns. I'd be more worried about leafy greens that are something like 90% water. Most plants bio-accumulate in their leaf matter, rather than fruits or wood, which is one reason fruits like gooseberry and aronia are used in runoff locations from roads/etc. The fruits are clean, but the leaves pull all kinds of nasty out of the water/soil.
Anyhow, in terms of contamination in syrup, the main issue is how it's processed. Old school buckets used lead solder, which leaches into the sap if it's left in the bucket too long. Modern methods use tubing, and leave the tubing strung in the sun between the trees for 5 years at a time before replacing it. They break down, and put all manner of endocrine disrupting chemicals as it runs.
We use buckets that are either modern buckets galvanized and made with food safe solder, or more recently, we're switching to all stainless steel buckets (expensive, but we're small scale).
Then when it's boiled, on a commercial scale they use reverse osmosis to concentrate the sap, and add in chemical de-foaming agents...and all manner of other fun stuff. So yes, there are things to worry about in syrup, but it's not the sap itself. If you make it conscientiously, you know what's in it and I think that's what matters.
Good heads up Laura! Especially timely in the wake of the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio. I don't worry too much about toxins in the sap as the trees purify the water coming in to the cells. Nevertheless, if I was downwind of an event like that train wreck, I'd at least smell the sap to make sure it's not stinky with vinyl chloride.