Urban tree tapping
Apr 12th, 2009 by Laura Reinsborough
The city is full of maple trees but most of them are Norway maples, so until this spring I was sure they couldn’t be used to make maple syrup.
Then one day, I happened upon an urban experiment in my very own neighbourhood. Somebody had tapped a Norway maple in their front yard! I had no idea whether this would yield any syrup, or at least syrup worth tasting. Perhaps it was a home experiment to appease a curious child, destined to fail but encasing an important life lesson.
By coincidence, the next week I got a call from a CBC radio reporter doing a story on a family in Halifax that had tapped six trees. He was calling to see if I knew about other urban tree tapping in Toronto or elsewhere. And so I finally had an excuse to knock on the door and find out more about my neighbour’s curious experiment.
Turns out my neighbour Glen grew up on a farm where maple syrup harvesting helped supplement income this time of year. They had 200-300 trees on the property. For the last few years he has wondered about tapping trees in the city, so he finally got around to his experiment this year. He got permission from his nextdoor neighbour to tap their tree, attached two buckets and kept watch while the sap was running. He ended up with over a litre of pure, beautiful syrup and says he’s been enjoying it on “maple syrup delivery mechanisms” such as biscuits and pancakes.
The tree that Glen tapped was a Norway maple, the kind whose tiny sprouts I regularly pluck from my garden so they don’t take permanent root. They’re an introduced species that has flourished in North America to the detriment of many other species. Most syrup production comes from a native species, the sugar maple. But sugar maples are harder to find in the city as they don’t deal so well with urban stresses like pollution and compact soil.
When the sap starts to flow from the sugar maples in the spring, it’s collected and boiled down to a ratio of 40:1. It turns out that Norway maples can also be tapped, but the season is shorter and the sap needs to be boiled down further to produce syrup of the right consistency.
I’m still going to pluck the Norway maple saplings from my garden, since they’re keen to invade our city’s ravines. But for the large maples that currently line our streets, what if we were to tap them all?
You can do ours!
Laura,
I’m amazed to see this article! I have been meaning to write you for the past few weeks suggesting you tap urban maples, and just this I morning thought about you again! As they say, great minds think alike. I think this is a rock-on fabulous idea.
The city is chock-full of maples that could be usefully harvested for Toronto maple syrup! I personally have one, and my mother (of the apricot tree) has one, which we would gleefully offer up. One consideration is that most of these trees seem to be on city property. I wonder if you could even strike up a deal of some kind with the city (eg they supply buckets and other equipment, you organize volunteer labour)…
I look forward to tapping my tree!
Please keep us posted.
warmly,
Natalie Zend
I personally think this is an amazing idea.
I would love to have someone come into my neighbourhood to help me identify which trees are what so I could approach neighbours. I am fairly sure that people in my neighbourhood would be more than willing to allow us to collect from their trees.
Horray!
M
it is a good idea as long as people have the knowledge of how to tap trees properly- not all tress should be tapped for the same amount of it sugar otherwise the tree itself will lose proper regenerative value.
Its pretty well common sense- the smaller the tree the less taps, the bigger the more (I think the most you can put is about 3-6 taps?)
about 40 litres of sap makes 1 litre of maple syrup! it would be fun to see neighborhoods band together!!!
I did this several years ago on my largest silver maple tree. We got lots of sap (which can be drunk as is) and boiled some down that became a very light syrup.
Large operations are more efficient in that they apparently now do a reverse osmosis process to reduce the water content before boiling. But home boiling is fine in early Spring as the energy goes to heating the home.
I did notice that the tree produced less leaves that year, so it definitely was taxed somewhat.
I live a block or two away and neighbours of mine across the street have been tapping their tree every year for the past 7 or 8. The problem with that is that they use the same bore holes and they tap the same tree year after year, which is not how it should be done and weakens the tree. Look into the right way to do it before experimenting!
Also, boiling down the sap inside your home, while conserving the energy expended to some extent, will also result in a steamy sweet bath pervading every iota of your abode; think of sticky dust on the top of your bookself, in your linen cupboard, inviting bugs to feast on your ceiling fan all summer long….
We tapped our Norway Maple one year and got 2 gallons of sap which we boiled down to about 2 cups of syrup. Seriously.
Hi Laura,
I think this is a great idea! I appreciate the lively discussion. And let’s not forget that one can tap birch trees too! The syrup isn’t as sweet but one can also drink the sap as is as with maples. From my research, which included emails back and forth with a birch sap facility in Northern Ontario, one needs to keep in mind that sap is generally not very stable, i.e. it can be prone to mould, etc. This is because before it is boiled it is still alive, essentially it is the trees’ blood (seriously!). The boiling and I imagine the increased sugar content (sugar is a preservative) that comes with boiling make the sap more stable.
Apparently First Nations people used to drink maple and birch saps as is as Spring elixirs. And, when they boiled the sap down, they generally boiled them until they got maple sugar (i.e., a solid). This is because it’s a lot easier to store and transport maple sugar cakes than syrup.
Lastly, it might be a challenge to get taps for the trees in the city? If you find out where to get some, please let me know:)
Jason
Jason,
You could try Atkinson Maple Syrup supplies. It’s just north of Barrie on Highway 11, in Guthrie. atkinsonmaple.com
I think this is an amazing idea, provided people use proper means to tap the trees! Never knew you could tap a Norway!
Great interview and great job! Way To Go!!!
twi may concern
To tap you need a maple tree (look under the tree for maple leaves and helicopter seeds) a 7/16 ‘ drill bit with a cordless drill, and a spile (the little spigot you insert in the hole), a bucket and a lid from any country hardware or co-op store’
Tap the spile firmly in the hole, hang the bucket and lid and gather the sap daily between the last week in feb to the first week in april
Keep adding and boiling the sap in a stock kettle until it reduces to syrup so that the mixture flakes when dripped from the side of a teaspoon
Don’t worry about the tree…. it will heal itself by the next season
hgd