Maple Sugaring Season

Wood Homestead's Greenmarket booth

We're in the midst of the sugaring season, and New York is the third-biggest producer of maple syrup, after Vermont and Maine. Sadly, the New York Times reports that the Vermont syrup season has been disrupted by unseasonably warm nighttime temperatures--ideally, the warmer days and freezing nights of February, March, and April causes the sap to flow.

But Wood Homestead, located in Stamford, New York, is doing fine, tapping their trees and boiling the sap down to syrup. It takes about 40 liters of sap to make one liter of syrup, hence the high price tag for the real thing.

For now, Wood Homestead is offering grade A syrup, the lighter, less intense variety. Van Glad said that the darker grade B comes later in the season, about two or three weeks from now.