Drew Davis, Reporter
@ddaviscourant
The transitional months from February to April capture the perfect weather conditions for the production of maple syrup. Such perfect conditions draw families and groups to the New Canaan Nature Center to trek out to their maple trees in the middle of snow-covered forests to tap sap, which is later boiled down and made into fresh maple syrup.
Through the Nature Center’s Adopt a Tree program families or groups can pay around $70 to rent a tree to tap during the season. “Participants choose the tree, we help them tap the tree and then their responsibility is to go out at least one to three times a week to collect their sap,” school program manager and environmental educator at the Nature Center Chris Hendershot said.
The Garden Club, led by juniors Callie Busch and Gretchen McCarthy, participates in the Nature Center’s maple syrup program. This season members turned the focus of their club from agricultural sustainability to the winter friendly and edible project of making maple syrup.
group taps the trees for fresh sap, the sap travels from the roots of the tree to it’s tips and eventually into the bucket. “In the spring as the trees are getting ready to make their buds and grow back their leaves, the sap has to flow from the roots to the top so the sugar can get to the buds,” Gretchen said.
Once the sap is collected it is brought to the Nature Center’s Sugar Shack to be boiled down. “Once enough sap is collected we bring it to the Sugar Shack to boil off the water,” Mr. Hendershot said. “Sap is about 98% water and 2% sugar so it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.”
Once the sap is boiled to the proper density it is then filtered to purify the sap. “It is filtered so that it’s not cloudy and so that there are not bugs or leaves in it,” Callie said.
When the syrup is produced it is bottled up and given to the Adopt a Tree participants or sold at the Nature Center’s visiting center. “We give some bottles back to our Adopt a Tree folks,” Chris said. “They get the first batch and which is usually the best because they deserve it and we then take the rest and put it in the visitors center and sell it as is.”
On Saturdays the Nature Center opens up the boiling down of sap to the public during events called “Syrup Saturday”. “There are boil downs about once every two weeks on the weekend,” Callie said. “They boil the syrup and you can sit with a bunch of families around the fire and smell the yummy maple syrup.”
Since the Garden Club enjoys interacting with nature, collecting sap encourages them to go outside during months when it is challenging to garden. “It is difficult for the Garden Club to be active outside in the winter, but the Adopt a Tree program is one of the most interesting ways we have found to farm in the winter,” club advisor Whitney McCarthy said.
Despite the extensive process of boiling down the syrup, the Garden Club is always satisfied with the finished product. “It takes almost all day to make syrup from the sap we collect,” Gretchen said. “It is eye opening to see how hard people work to make something that a lot of people take for granted.”
