Fosterholm Farms

2234 Cty. Rd. 18, Picton, Ontario, 613.393.5655
Cliff Foster’s father started making maple syrup in 1924 at Home Farm near Sandbanks. He spent everything he had to buy 75 acres, and at first he lived in the barn because the farm had no house. But it had a sugarbush, and he used to tap the trees and hang 375 sap buckets. He worked hard, built a house and eventually bought Outlet Farm that had another good sugarbush. So he bought another 325 buckets.

Now Cliff runs Fosterholm Farms with his son Dean and with help from his two grandsons. Each year they tap 7,000 trees. But Cliff and Dean don’t hang buckets - they collect sap by running lines to each tree. Taps and lines go in in January and come out in April.

The Foster evaporator is oil fired, and with the price of oil rising, Cliff is thankful for his reverse osmosis system that removes 70% of the water from the sap before it even reaches the evaporator making huge savings on boiling time. It’s a tough machine, built in 1967 and going strong.

Maple in the County kicks off the season for the Foster family, and in 2005 a thousand people visited them in the sugar shack to enjoy home made pancakes with sausages and as much maple syrup as they wanted. Cliff is generous with his syrup and puts big jugfuls on the table for guests to help themselves. His dad would be proud.

Hubbs Sugarbush & Sweetwater Cabin

332 Pulver Road, Carrying Place, Ontario, 613.966.8997
Ron Hubbs grew up on a dairy farm and once grew cash crops himself. Now he works in the municipality’s roads and engineering department, but this fourth generation farmer still produces one great crop a year - sweet and spicy maple syrup. He’s carrying on a family tradition of more than 100 years.

The family farm has an old established sugarbush with 14 kms of thoroughly modern plastic tubing to collect the sap. But as well as tending the old bush up a lane and over the hill from the farmhouse, Ron planted a new orchard in 1989. He dug out young maples that were struggling for light and replanted them on a sunny south-facing slope behind the house. With 100 trees per acre the orchard captures maximum sunlight to ensure the best possible yield of sap, and it’s almost ready to harvest sap.

Janice Hubbs created their Sweetwater Cabin from a very old log cabin they rescued from Lanark County. Rebuilt and looking great, the little cabin welcomes visitors all year round to sample syrup and maple treats. A wonderful selection of maple themed antiques and accessories are on display and for sale, and a stuffed “fisher,” a furry little carnivore that could chew its way through plastic lines faster than lightning but who met his fate on the road outside, now sits stuffed and watchful amid the maple paraphernalia.

Janice is curator of the Ameliasburgh Museum and a fountain of knowledge about the history of the County and of maple syrup. Just as the Indians taught settlers how to make maple syrup to sweeten their hard lives, Janice enthusiastically shares her love and knowledge of all things maple with schoolchildren, guests and her hundreds of Maple in the County visitors.

JC Nyman Farms

292 Mowbray Road, Picton, Ontario, 613.476.6120

www.jcnymanfarms.com, jcnyman@kos.net

 

Every March, as John’s parents farmed, he could be found in the sugar bush. Just 12-years old when he built his first sugar shack, today JC  Nyman Farms can proudly say it has more than 20 years of maple syrup experience under its belt. Starting out with 40 plastic ice cream buckets 20 years ago,  JC Nyman Farms today has 900 taps mostly on pipeline with a few on buckets.  Boiling is done in the farm yard sugar shack on a newer high efficiency wood fired evaporator.

John's picturesque 78 acre farm (located just outside Picton) is ethical, sustainable and animal-friendly. Its mix of productive farm- and pasture-land allow John to produce the very best grass fed lamb, pork, beef, eggs, free-range chickens and turkeys you’ll ever eat. 

John maintains an open door policy, encouraging visitors to peek in every nook and cranny to see for themselves that the farm is a happy and healthy place to raise the animals.  During Maple in the County don’t be surprised if it’s a riot of adorable lambs bounding around in the barn!

 

Stone's Maple Producers

644 Cty. Rd. 5, Picton, Ontario, 613.476.6134
Doug Stone grew up on a dairy farm. He bought his own farm in 1979, choosing one with an established sugar bush. When he began tapping trees in 1980 he would hang 500 sap buckets then drive around on his tractor emptying each bucket into a big tank to take back to the sugar shack. He built an addition onto the farm’s original sugar shack and in 1985 bought a new wood-fired evaporator that takes full advantage of the abundance of fallen trees as fuel. (Doug heats his home with wood, too.)

Twenty years on, Doug no longer hangs buckets. Now he drills tap holes and connects each tree to a sturdy plastic line that runs straight to the evaporator.

Doug and his family welcome about 900 visitors for the Maple in the County event. Their antique tractors are a huge attraction, but everybody enjoys the maple butter and maple sugar treats. They can also enjoy a special coffee, made with raw sap instead of water for a very distinctive taste.

Doug says maple producers are a great bunch of people, hard working, supportive and dedicated to the art. They have traveled around Canada to see how other producers work and are active in promoting County maple syrup at events like Taste! a celebration of regional cuisine.

Vader Maple Syrup

1260 Cty. Rd 18, Cherry Valley, Ontario, 613.476.5231
Bottles of Vader’s maple syrup are familiar sights in County shops and supermarkets, but many maple fans still prefer to go to the Vader’s farm shop or the Vader’s kitchen door to buy their syrup.

Grandfather Arnold Vader learned the craft from his own father and grandfather and has been making maple syrup himself for more than 60 years. These days he takes it a little easier and lets his sons and grandchildren carry on the tradition. Arnold is famous for his stories about the old days of maple syrup making and just about everything else in the County, and he shares his stories with visitors on Maple in the County weekend.

Arnold’s son Todd is chief syrup maker now. He’s been doing it for 25 years on the farm that his great grandfather bought in 1910. Todd makes the point that - sweet as it is - maple syrup is far from frivolous. It’s a real crop, the farmer’s first crop of the year. Todd and his sons farm corn and soy and run a dairy operation too. But for a short, intense period each spring they focus on maple syrup working hard to tend an astounding 2,500 taps on direct lines to the sugarshack, and about 300 old fashioned buckets in areas where they can’t string lines.

Old style tools and vintage photos are on show during Maple in the County, while the sap house itself is state-of-the-art, and visitors get a close look at the powerful oil fired evaporator by climbing up to a wooden viewing platform. Maple weekend is a time for celebration with the Vader family with storytelling, maple tastings and music. It’s tradition and history and a great family business.