Elderberries

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

I have grown them for 8 years. I juice them down and put juice in 20 ounce bottles and freeze. I freeze the berries on the stem and then rub them over a 1/4 inch screen
to separate from stems. It takes about 25 pounds to make 14 20 ounce bottles of juice. I have grown as much as 1250 pounds in a year.

I should have said harvest berries not pick them. To harvest hold a bucket under a clump and cut them off with scissors as close the berry as you can. If you try popping them off with your fingers, if they are ripe, they will just break open and stain your fingers

I've been reading up a little on them. There are ongoing trials in Missouri and Oregon. The native Sambucus canadensis is what all you guys have back in the east. Out here we have the red elderberries and the upland blue elderberries. In addition the Europeans are big into elderberries and have Sambucus nigra which is grown commercially. Years ago Smucker Jam company in Woodburn, Oregon grew elderberries and made jelly. It was one of their most popular jellies but eventually after 35 years they quit making it as the cost to return ratio was not as high as strawberries, etc.

I am seeing that some high prices are being paid for the frozen and fresh berries to companies that make herbal supplements.

hmmm,thanx for the info.

I have wild collected and processed the berries for many years, make syrups and jellies. sell a bunch every year local, doesn't matter how much i make it is never enough to satisfy demand.

pcr2...my cousin made elderberry jam every year, he would cut the "limbs" with the berrys on them into a paper grocery bag....put in the freezer until froze and then shake each clump of berrys into a bucket....said it took a little extra room in the freezer but was the most efficient way that he had found to remove berrys from the limb/branch...

I have been drinking elderberry tea almost daily. We processed 40 some pounds of frozen elderberries into syrup. Elderberry was one of the 3 main ingredients of Medieval medicine. Elderberry shortens the duration of the flu by 4 days and the common cold, which is a coronavirus, in half. I have around 20 more pounds of elderberries in my freezer.

I have a huge, very prolific, elderberry bush by my side door to my house. It gets thousands of heads of elderberries on it. There are lots of elderberry bushes in my area. Cuttings from elderberry bushes root almost immediately and if if started early, will bear fruit that year.

I plan on selling clones of my bush later this year.




Keith

I just yesterday mowed off about 1000 plants that were about 8 inches high that were coming up next to my mature rows.

Mark me down for some Keith.

Yeah, me too!

My wife would like some additional elderberry clones as well.

Thanks,

Chris

I had the flu for the first time in my life back in January. I tried elderberry syrup for the first time and I am convinced it got me up and moving sooner, shortened the duration of the virus, although I have no way of proving that.

I would like one of the clones of your bush as well Keith, if they are not all already spoken for.

A friend and I picked elderberries for many years and sold them to a customer who made jelly. It paid for our family vacation many years. One year we picked 2375 pounds of berries. They were all growing wild. We picked most of them along railroad tracks.

I sent PMs on elderberry.

Keith

Yes... After shaking dump the whole fozen mess into a bucket full of water..... All the good berries sink. Everything you don't want will float (stems, leaves, bugs, unripe berries)

Well oldtimers didnt have freezers. i was taught a little stem or a leaf or two would not hurt the cooked out juice at all. So if you want to do the freezer thing you may get a purer product or that little bit of stems and leaves you cook down makes it more effective? A few stems and leaves were definitely in the "tonic" when its healing and preventative property's were first observed.

I think I will continue using scissors, cutting close to the berries, and cook it all still fresh as soon as I get home with it. I just harvest wild berries. They are very common here.

Danny...I never knew anyone quite that old....haha
.

Rod Dog, electricity was unavailable to a lot of rural people clear up into the 70's. My grandparents didnt get electricity till the 60's. I suspect there is nothing harmful about ant part of the elderberry bush. Just pointing out that simply cutting the berries loose, Then cooking the juice out, is another way of making jelly, syrup or tonic.

I remember kin straining through cheese cloth or a clean T shirt.

I have been using elderberries my whole life.Wine,,,preserves,,and my favorite is my wife's elderberry cream cheese pie.Dont eat the berries raw.They are toxic.Cooking or boiling them in recipes releases the toxins rendering them harmless.

Actually according to the literature the leaves of the elderberry are toxic. Have not seen that the raw fruit is, although not many would want to eat them raw?

They are bitter tasting raw,,and yes they are toxic.Cooking renders the toxins harmless.

Yes, the leaves are toxic, berries are toxic until cooked. Every book on the subject ive read mentions that. How much to actually make you sick??? Dunno.

A fork works just fine if you have nothing else better to do, like during quarantine. Old timers didnt do things because they COULDNT... that doesnt mean they WOULDNT if they had the means to now.

Also, for anyone looking to transplant elderberry. Make (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) SURE you're digging up elderberry and not WATER HEMLOCK. Its in the top two or three most toxic plants in North America, and they grow in the same areas. Even pulling it out of the ground with bare hands can make you sick.

Yeah, I just looked it up and it seems that the besides the leaves, roots, and stems, the seeds of the fruit contain cyanide toxins but upon being cooked it becomes safe.

We used to pick them and sell them when I was a kid . I eat the raw berries every year and have never got sick .

One source that I was reading about says that the european elderberry S. nigra has toxic fruit if eaten raw but that the american S. canadensis does not. Not sure I would want to put too much faith in that though. Some years back the CDC reported that a group of nature worshippers (for lack of a better word) had crushed a bunch of elderberry fruits, stems, etc and added the raw puree to apple juice and consumed it. Eight of them became deathly ill within hours; one requiring hospitalization.

I have noticed that the elderberry bushes and leaves are the only thing around my garden that the deer will NOT eat. The berries are easier to harvest if the stems cut close
to the berries are frozen first then they come off and do not crush.

I have never been sick from wild elderberries cooked with a little stem on them and the occasional leaf. Never looked it up as i never saw a need to. No idea how much poisonous polk salat I've ate after boiling it either. For whatever reason there is a lot of misinformation out there about what is safe and what isnt. Sassafras is another. Yet when calling the dried crumbled leaves file and put it in gumbo its all good. Any chance that it is now poison is because sassafras lowers blood pressure and some people dont need a drug because of it?

i am no expert on wild herbs plants and medicine, but you can't trust everything in print. Unfortunately a lot of stuff people knew by learning it from parents grandparents and neighbors is lost now.

Water hemlock does not look anything like elderberries. The only similarity is white flowers

Ditto all of the above for chokecherries. We planted both Shubert and Common chokecherries in our shelterbelts 25 years ago and have harvested many gallons over the years. The syrup and jelly is unbelievably good. We use the syrup on French toast and pancakes all winter long. We have read many comparisons to the two. More chokecherries here than elderberries.

We harvest them when they are totally black. We do not pull the stems off with the berries. If you pick at the right time, those little berries come off very easily. If you have anyone picking with you, you can get 5 gallons an hour easily. Shubert's tend to be a little larger cherry with more juice but the common cherries have a little more pulp. We like the pulp in the syrup. Also, if you want more pulp wait until they are slightly beyond ripe. As they begin to dry down they are full of pulp.

Birds and coons love them but we have enough for all.

My uncle made some amazingly good wine with chokecherries every year.

Yup Danny, chokecherrys and elderberries are the two top fruits to make wine from. Grapes are the only other that makes a better wine, if in the right hands!

I ended up sending out 122 Elderberry cuttings to people. I planted 200 plus cuttings for myself. All of the cuttings look good. I had one multi branch cutting look rough, but it bounced back.

Many of the cuttings are starting to develop flowers.



The last time I planted elderberry cuttings, they had berries on them that same year.

I have pears, catawba grape, blueberry and hazelnut cuttings going too.



Keith

Good job keith!

In addition to the cuttings I got from you, I got some others from Wisconsin and am getting more cuttings this week from Missouri and the USDA collection in Corvallis, Oregon. I will be planting out about 7000 plants next year after we virus test and then tissue culture them. Will have at least 11 genotypes total.

There's enough ripe elderberries to pick here now. Today, I picked around 8 pounds of elderberries on the heads.

Keith

They do make a beautiful wine. Everybody knew what they where getting from me for Christmas! I use the fork technique. The best bushes always grew 20 30 yards in to the swamps by me. We would go looking when the blooms where on and easy to see. Would then put flagging tape on one of the branches to mark them. Made beating the birds to them easier later in the year.

We pick them every year and have done so since I can remember.Elderberry pie is my favorite.I have tried every trick in the book like the fork thingy.I just fill bushels up with the clumps,,then just get them off by hand into buckets.Wear them doctor gloves if ya don't want purple hands.

Keith,
Whatever you do, don't let Trump mention that your elderberrys may have some medicinal effect on coronavirus or all of your posts will be wiped clean from social media!

I noticed some of mine coming ripe now. Blackberries just starting here too. Keith are you selling cuttings from that monster elderberry bush? I wouldn't mind crossing paths with you to pick some up.

I want some cuttings if anyone has some. Send me a on for my address. I'll pay shipping.

Would you care to share recipe??

I have been growing elderberries for about 8 years. I juice them up and sell the juice in 20 ounce bottles. They are easy to grow as they will shoot out runners that can be transplanted.
I have about 1100 feet of them that I have drip irrigation on. They ripen about the second week of August. We make wine and jelly out of most and sell the rest to the winery

what is your process for the cuttings? I've only sewn berries/seeds along fence rows. Do you use a rooting hormone? I picked about 10# last year, and should have about that again this year. I want to make some wine and maybe some syrup.

How bitter are they to eat raw? Are they worse then a choke cherry?

Elderberries should be cooked to be safe. They contain some cyanide compounds in them that can give you serious indigestion. Cooking removes them.

Elderberry is very easy to grow from cuttings. Both green and woody growth readily root if kept in wet soil. No rooting hormone is necessary. I like to leave 3 nodes on a cutting. I strip the lower 2 sets of leaves and place the 2 lowest nodes under the soil. Then I just water as necessary to keep the soil moist. I don't think I have ever had an elderberry cutting not take root.

Keith

I have been picking up to a 5 gallon bucket of elderberries a day off my bush, for the last 4 days. Today I picked 2, 5 gallon buckets of elderberries off my bush. I think I have harvested about 20% of the berries for the year off of it.




Keith

Anyone use a steam juicer ? Friends who used to do lots of elder berries used one. I haven't gotten juice from them for recently.

We've never used a steam juicer. We add a little bit of water to the berries and cook them over a low heat, stirring occasionally until the berries pop. We then hang them in a jelly bag over a pan. After the berries drain pretty well, Diane wrings the remaining juice out, usually staining her hands very purple. The dry seeds look strange when dumped out in a fused ball and will sit on the compost pile like that for a few rains before falling apart.

Keith

Keith, I can't see your pic.

Had to go check out jelly bags, neat.

All the pictures on Trapperman have been down tonight Doug. I checked and my older pictures were up, but the new one was not. I deleted it and reposted it and it now appears to be working. How are the cuttings I sent you doing?

Keith

Steam juicers are the way to go. Been using one for years. I use scissors to remove also, much faster than the fork method. You can process a lot of berrys this way.in a short time. A basket full of berrys in a steam juicer makes about three and a half quarts of juice in around an hour to cook down. I usually freeze the juice and make wine at a later date when I have more time. Thats the most effecient way I've found to use them.

I see the pic now.

Mine are doing great. A few set berries.

The Elderberry are just starting making berries in the last few days. They were all blossomed out last week and the week before. We have so many its unreal. There more of a weed and they grow really fast.