On another note, this year’s sugaring season was a great success. Winter just wouldn’t end up here in northern Vermont, and although that got a little hard for those of us who wanted to plant our gardens, it meant that the sap kept flowing. There’s plenty of maple syrup for the upcoming year. See you at the Greenmarket.

This past week has heralded a great beginning to our 2011 sugaring season. With a snowcover of 5-6 feet in much of the woods (after the 3ft “storm of the century” two weeks ago), frosty nights, and daytime temperatures pushing up above freezing (but not by much), we have enjoyed classic sugaring weather so far. The thousands of gallons of crystal clear sap we’ve collected over the last ten days have all been transformed into delicious maple syrup. The color is light golden, and the flavor is exquisite.
We will have new 2011 maple syrup, maple candies, and maple marshmallows at the Union Square Greenmarket this Friday and Saturday, March 25 and 26. Maple cream will have to wait a few weeks until our production season calms down a bit.
The weather forecast for the upcoming week makes us optimistic that this season will hang on for a while. As I write, we’re getting yet another snowstorm, with 8-10 inches expected before it stops. Hooray, hooray! More snow means more maple syrup!
See you at Union Square!

Three guys shoveling for three days later, that’s where we are now. That’s why my husband, Howie, always says that people who make maple syrup might appear to be a little mad this time of year.

This morning we awoke to more softly falling snow, the kind that coats every limb and twig with the temperature hovering just below freezing. It will warm up by a few degrees in the next few hours, and the sap will begin to run. Added to the sap that we collected yesterday in this first real run of the season, we have enough to boil. That is, we have enough sap to fill our huge pans, enough to light the first fire of the season under them and begin the yearly ritual of evaporation, transforming the watery sustenance of the stately sugar maple into the golden elixir of spring.

Get out the pickles! Sugaring time is here!

Very soon we’ll be bringing our first syrup of 2011 to the Greenmarket at Union Square, just as we’ve done every spring for the last 27 years. We hope to see you there. And if you’re in our little village of West Glover, stop by the newly refurbished Lake Parker Country Store and pick up a jug of our delicious 2011 “essence of spring.”

In the Market NOW

Our Greenmarket customers who yearn to prolong the sweet berry flavors of summer will be happy to know that all of our wonderful maple fruit syrups can now be found at our stand at Union Square in Manhattan. (Just to remind you, we are there every Friday and Saturday.) Right now, we have Raspberry, Strawberry, Wild! Blackberry, Blueberry, Ginger, and Hot Pepper Maple Syrups. That is surely something for everyone.

To make Deep Mountain Maple fruit syrups we juice fresh, local fruit; we concentrate the juice; and we blend it with our own pure maple syrup. Nothing else is added. Nothing else is needed to make a delicious syrup that is bursting with summer’s best flavors. Come by the stand and we’ll give you a taste.

We will try to keep a nice selection of fruit syrups on the table at the market throughout the fall and the holiday season, but we may not have every flavor every week. Visit us soon for the best selection.

Until next time,

Stephan Cantor

MAPLE CREAM is back! This week at the Union Square Greenmarket we have delicious maple cream made from this year’s new syrup. Yum. Spreadable maple.

Also, RAMPS are up in the woods and we will have a few bunches at the market. These fantastically pungent wild leeks are a real spring treat and are only around for a short while. If you really want them this week you should come see us on Friday, because they might not last until Saturday.

This year’s sugaring season has finally ended, but what a wild ride it was! The sap began to flow in the maple trees during the last week of February, and sugarmakers (maple syrup producers) all over Vermont were caught offguard. Here in northern Vermont, there have been many years when we haven’t gotten those above freezing temperatures until the middle of March or later. This was as early a beginning to the sugaring season as anyone can remember. Along with all our sugarmaking neighbors, we scrambled to finish tapping our trees, clean our tanks, and get ready to boil some sap!

The early warm weather was no tease. Perfectly classic sugaring weather set in and continued for the next three weeks without a break. Freezing cold nights followed by daytime temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s create ideal conditions for maple sap production, and the trees did not disappoint us. They yielded thousands and thousands of gallons of beautiful, clear sap, day after day after day. This was a very good year for Fancy Grade maple syrup. We produced plenty of it, and it is remarkably light in color and delicate in flavor. But for those fans of darker syrup, we made lots of Grade B as well.

It was a very good sugaring year overall. Now spring has arrived in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and at Deep Mountain Maple we are tired but happy.