2024 Maple Month Week 1 & 2

We're back and excited to welcome folks for the 2024 maple season at Harding Hill Farm! Behind the scenes, it doesn't feel like the start of maple season - we've been at it for months already. We've been working hard in the woods since early January. Our earliest first boil in farm history was on January 29th, and we are now approaching a hopeful half crop. The stats below show Wednesday’s total but late Thursday night, we hit 1,307 gallons this season.

For the past several years, erratic and mild winters have tested our abilities and patience as maple producers. We start tapping earlier and we start production earlier than we could have imagined decades ago. Fortunately technology innovations allow us to efficient collect and concentrate sap (remove excess water). We still operate our evaporator with wood, but these efficiencies help us burn less and reduce our footprint. The 2023 year was the season of expansion, and 2024 is the season of small improvements and efficiencies. We've set the groundwork for more taps in the future, but for now we hold tight at just under 5,000 taps in two locations (Wilmot & Lempster). We also pick up sap from a friend that manages about 1,000 taps. At the end of last season, we took our traditional woods in Newport offline to allow it to rest and give us some time to replace all the taps and tubing in the future.

February 28th brought us another milestone in our farm record books - the most syrup produced in a single day at 240 gallons! The last two weeks plagued us with late nights and very early mornings. The temperature hit nearly 60 degrees at one point. During the last cold snap, winter roared back with a vengeance bringing 50 mph winds and sub-zero wind chills. Everything froze up, creating its own problems. We also worry about damage in the woods to trees and subsequently our sap lines. Just when we think we know what to anticipate, the cold weather busted a valve on the tank of concentrated sap on March 1st (Tyler’s Birthday of course!) leading to a huge mess in the sugarhouse. We spent two days cleaning up to be ready for our March 3rd opening day for open sugarhouse hours! We got it done and it was a fantastic day talking all things maple.

I'm very happy to report that we made it through the very worrisome warm stretch this week and got our freeze in the high 20s last night. The warm sun today also delivered the best sap flow rates of the season. Our crew has been working long days and late nights keeping up with all the sap this week. We are looking forward to Friday night at home to rest and recuperate ahead of another weekend of boiling and open sugarhouse hours. March 9th and 10th is the second weekend of NH Maple Month. I'll have the machine going for samples of delicious maple sugared popcorn. Stop in and celebrate maple/mud season with us… and bring your boots!

maple tap count
5,700 Taps

**First Boil - January 29th, 2024**
11 boiling days
**Total Sap Collected so far…**
68,140 Gallons
1.4% Sugar Average
46 Gal sap needed for 1 Gal syrup
**Maple Syrup Total as of 3/6**
1,187 Gallons
**Maple Grades**
Amber Rich, Dark Robust

We are very much stocked with plenty of Amber Rich maple syrup and even the first run of Dark, Robust this year. We also have a supply of maple candy, granulated sugar and cream! Open hours at the sugarhouse are Saturday and Sunday - 10am till 4:30 pm. Also mark your calendars for Saturday, March 16th for Pancake Breakfast and Pulled Pork lunch, serving 10am till 2pm.

ALSO - I highly encourage you to join our email newsletter community (entry form at bottom of webpage). This is our only guaranteed way of getting you all the latest info on our farm goods and upcoming events.