Anybody growing or wild collecting them?

Sounds like lot of folks are seeking out elderberry products these days for their purported anti-viral and immune system boosting properties.

grow wild here,have made wine with them.

Nothing but red elderberries here. Always heard they were poison. So bitter I can't imagine you could eat enough to poison you though. Band tailed pigeons like them though.

Takes a lot of sugar to make syrup jelly or wine humptulips. A lot of jelly makers end up with syrup. Has no pectin. You need to add twice as much as you think you will. Have heard of making syrup with blossoms but dont know much about it. Lee Steinmeyer on here had some wine he had made with them. Was really good. Get ripe here about the first to the middle of August.

Made wine with them many times. Fermenters forum would probably have quite a bit to say on them

I have grown them but went to just foraging them as they are very common here wild. I make elderberry syrup, glycerite, and my wife makes jam. They are supposed to have very strong antiviral properties. We use the glycerite and syrup during cold and flu season and it seems to help.

We grow common elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, up from seed. Collect berries in September, soak overnight, mash, rinse and strain to separate pulp from seed. Sow the seed in flat soil tray, leave outside over winter. Bring in a greenhouse or under grow lights in the spring if you want, or they will germinate on their own outside. Then you can transplant the seedlings into larger containers. Just finished 20 plug flats of this year's seedlings this week.

Grow wild here. My wife makes a home remedy cough syrup with it. Works great.

I have about 6 gallons in the freezer from last year. Making wine and syrup

Found out at about age 6 that a few handfuls thrown at your brother will turn his new white t shirt a different color.............mom was NOT happy.

half dozen outta a bb gun REALLY mess up a white shirt.

They make a great pie for us that like 'em.
We've also made freezer jam with them.
They were easy to find and pick in central NY when I grew up there. Easy to find in Illinois, one can pick by the grocery bag full when ripe.

We grow them and have different plants growing wild nearby. Wife makes an elixir out of them that we take daily if it seems a cold or flu is coming on. Now that she has given some to family and friends she has quite the following in flu season!

Chris

I've pretty much always picked them from bushes in road ditch here.. I even shot bunch a photos some years back with intent to write up story on them.
My mother from elder berry's mostly made jelly. My mother inlaw said when she was young they fried the flower heads in flour and butter. I have not tried that yet but have been meaning to.
I've mostly made the jelly with some ending up syrup. Which I don't mind because I just pour it over ice cream.. I don't know of anyone around here that grows them purposely? Don't really no anyone out side of family does like me and picks them in road ditch.
They are usually ripe in August here and they don't seem to hang long once ripe. Got to really watch them and pick them as they ripen. I usually clip whole heads off with a pair scissor and do same with berries that don't fall off stems.

Mac

Mark, we pick them from the side of the road here. They are very common. Just not real popular. Most people dont know what they are when they see them.

anyone else do the fork technique for gettin em off the limbs??

When I make jelly i use two boxes of pectin in 3 cups of cooked out juice. 4 1/2 cups of sugar. no lemon. For syrup I use one box of pectin.

Mix raw honey and juice 50/50. Heat it to a simmer and pour into sterile hot canning jars and put sterile lids on. It will seal. Occasionally one will not or it wont stay sealed. Put that one in the fridge and eat it first.

If I had sugar maple here I might freeze some berries or juice. Mix it with maple syrup. See how it tastes.

To juice berries I pick them when they turn upside down. Put a 1/2 inch of water in a blue water bather canner. One of the big ones. Fill it with berries. A little stem or even a leaf or three is fine. Put it on a real low fire. Burner barely having any flame. Put the lid on. Wait. The berries will turn to pulp. Pour it all through a screen sieve. Pour a cup or so of boiling water through the pulp, catching the liquid to get all the goodness out. It will be a real dark purple almost black juice.

I make wine from the berrys and flowers.
The flowers make a very good white wine. The berrys make a wine so dark I call it a black wine. When I put a half a bottle in the spagetti sauce I call that a Do not operate heavy equiptment after dinner spagetti sauce.

do ya wear gloves?

Coos: Would you start Choke cherrys the same way? Thanks