Pure magic from our trees to your table!
Some of the finest maple syrup Vermont offers comes from our mountainside sugar maple trees.
At Green’s Sugarhouse, our mission is to produce the highest quality maple products at the fairest prices using methods that keep the traditions of our ancestors.
Green’s Sugarhouse is nestled in Finel Hollow in Poultney, Vermont, where our ancestors settled in 1774. Over the years, the tradition of maple sugaring has been passed down through our family for six generations.
Richard Green has been around maple sugaring his entire life. As a young boy working on his grandfather’s farm in Castleton, Vermont, he realized he wanted to continue his family tradition. His first memory of maple sugaring as a child was riding on the back of a sap-gathering sled being pulled by a small old bulldozer. He and his brother would drag their feet through the snow as the sled moved slowly along the sugaring roads. They watched as the sap was collected from buckets and dumped into the gathering tank. Rich loved being on the farm and by age nine, he spent every Easter break from school helping his grandfather make maple syrup. After college, while living in Charlotte, Vermont, Rich and his wife, Pam, decided to build their small sugarhouse. They tapped about 50 trees on the side of Mount Philo.
In 1982, Rich and Pam moved to Rich’s mother’s family homestead in Poultney, Vermont. At the “homestead,” they started sugaring in the old family sugarhouse, about a half mile into the woods. The evaporator they used was 3 feet by 10 feet which Rich had purchased from an old hermit in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. They used buckets to tap around 200 trees at first.
“Some of those trees were tapped by Rich’s family 200 years ago!”
Over the next few years, Rich and Pam added some buckets here and there. Soon after they moved to Poultney, they began selling their syrup at the farmer’s market in Rutland. Around 1985, the town manager of Poultney put an article in the paper asking for anyone interested in starting a farmer’s market to come to a meeting. Having prior experience, Pam stepped up and became the organizer of the Poultney Farmer’s Market. They also began participating in several craft shows in the area.
In the fall of 1985, the Greens built their new sugarhouse. All of the timber for the building was felled and milled by Rich himself. The dimensions of the sugarhouse were 20′ x 36′, big enough to fit a larger evaporator, so in the fall of 1996, they graduated from a 3′ x 10′ to a 5′ x 14′ wood-fired evaporator. Rich claims at first Pam was nervous to use it because it was so big!
Rich retired from his regular job in 2001 and he and Pam began to work full-time at their maple sugaring business. At this point, they were putting out 2,200 buckets every spring. Even with the help of family and friends, this became a monumental task. They needed to make some changes and improvements for the business to grow. So in 2001, they washed and stored all their buckets for the last time and installed 5,000 taps on maple tubing. That same year, they changed to a pipeline system and purchased a reverse osmosis machine. This machine would take a percentage of the water out of the sap before it was boiled, saving time and wood energy. No more all-night boils and sleeping at the sugarhouse! This made more time for tubing maintenance in the sugar woods, and less time cutting wood.
Green’s Sugarhouse sells almost our whole crop directly to consumers through craft shows, farmers’ markets, online, or at the Sugarhouse store. Once the syrup is boiled, filtered, and graded we put it into our 40-gallon stainless steel barrels. The barrels of syrup are stored in our walk-in cooler. By storing the syrup in our walk-in cooler, we ensure that the pure maple syrup we put in our retail containers and other products is as fresh as the day it was made!
The Greens emphasize producing the highest quality maple products Vermont has to offer! Our Maple Syrup, Maple Cream, Maple Candy, and Maple Granulated Sugar are all single-ingredient pure maple products. Other products such as our Maple Sugar Spices, Pancake Mixes, Dressing, Jams, and more are homemade at our sugarhouse with only top-quality ingredients. Green’s Sugarhouse products are made in small batches throughout the year to ensure our customers receive the freshest product possible.
We use sustainable tapping practices and smaller health spouts to maintain healthy trees. We filter our sap and boil it fresh daily during the sugaring season. Once boiled, it’s vacuum sealed in stainless steel drums and stored in our walk-in cooler. Then throughout the year it’s canned in small batches to ensure you get our freshest product.
At Green’s Sugarhouse, we love producing maple products, teaching people about maple, and sharing our love of maple and our unique way of life through interactions with our consumers. We love educating them about the healthful benefits of pure maple syrup, how it’s made, and all the delicious recipes to try it in.
Today, Rich and Pam continue the tradition with their beagles, Ellie and Max, who are always happy to greet visitors at the Sugarhouse. Contact us now for a visit any time of the year!
Are you looking for even more? If you have more questions or want to learn more about sugaring follow us on Facebook at Green’s Vermont Maple Sugarhouse, on Instagram @greenssugarhouse, or sign up for our mailing list. You will also be notified about new products, enter our free giveaways, learn new recipes with pure Vermont Maple, and much more.