Urbanites eye city maples for syrup

Photo by Larissa Mead-Wescott. See link to photo here.

CBC News
April 8, 2009

Two Halifax syrup harvesters want the municipality to allow the tapping of maple trees.

Janice Ashworth and Jason Dionne have been collecting liquid sugar from eight trees along Allan Street, in the city’s west end. Dionne learned how to tap trees and boil the sap into maple syrup at a cousin’s farm in New Brunswick.

Ashworth said the project makes them more self-sufficient.

“It’s kind of hard to grow a lot of your own food in the city or produce your own produce and stuff, so we thought this would be one way that we can do a little bit of that,” Ashworth told CBC News.

Ashworth and Dionne say they’ll take the taps out of the trees at the end of the season and fill the holes with beeswax to prevent infection.

But the Halifax Regional Municipality’s urban forester, John Simmons, said the two residents are still breaking the rules because no one is allowed to knowingly damage a tree in the HRM.

“Over time if you continually tap a tree you can … stop the flow up and down the tree,” Simmons said.

Since the taps are already in the trees, Simmons said the municipality won’t intervene, but it will keep an eye on the situation.

“If it continues, if it grows, then we’ll have to look at taking action. But right now we’re comfortable with letting it be there,” he said.

Ashworth and Dionne say the rules should be changed so that harvesters can freely tap in the next time the sap starts to flow.

Link to CBC story here.

Garden Girl’s video about urban maple sugar harvesting

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