2012 Elderberries

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Picked about 10 lbs. this morning. Maybe another 5 lbs. or so left to pick. So far this year, picked just over 70 lbs. from our backyard. That's the most ever!

My wife deserves the credit. She has been watering every day for the last month or so. Thanks to her watering, our very short row of Norton grapes looks good, too.

Jim
 
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Been looking for wild elderberries here in No. Ga. Mntn's for 5 years. Finally found them today, went tubing down the Toccoa River with our Grandson, litterly in our backyard & saw elderberries everywhere along the banks. The river follows a road where the bushes were so it won't be a problem getting back there by car. Can't wait! Roy
 
TwinMaples said:
Picked about 10 lbs. this morning. Maybe another 5 lbs. or so left to pick. So far this year, picked just over 70 lbs. from our backyard. That's the most ever!

My wife deserves the credit. She has been watering every day for the last month or so. Thanks to her watering, our very short row of Norton grapes looks good, too.

Jim
Click to expand...

70 Lbs so far, that's great. I'm up to 46 lbs, I should be able to get another 20 lbs from the one bush and hopefully the other locations prove to be fruitful. It is a 12 mile trip to get to the next location and then another 5 miles from that one to the other plants I found.

Heading out Wednesday after work to the close bush then over the weekend to check on the others. GOing to hit the primary bush every couple days and see what happens.
 
Went out last night and picked another 15 lbs of berries and tossed about 2 lbs of green and floaters. Brings my total this season to 61 lbs. Sunday should yield another 15-20 lbs hopefully. That will make for a good season IMHO.

I'll probably be digging out the steamer the end of August.
 
I have a couple "Black Lace" bushes in my yard, and I just found out they are in the Elderberry family.

Has anyone used these berries to make wine?

The berries are a dark red right now, maybe 10-20 lbs on them.
I'm going to do the float test on a few to see if they are ready.
Thanks for this thread, it's great. ...and TwinMaples video was a big help...thanks for that too!
 
I still need to check out the video, cant see it from work. I generally use 2 buckets of cold water. One to float in the other to soak the clusters prior to soaking then just hold the clusters and fan my fingers through them. The 15 lbs last night took about an hour and 15 minutes to clean.
 
Doug:

One of these days you have to show me your patches that you pick from, you know, just in case you get sick or whatever.... Don't want the birds to eat up all those grest berries in case you can't get to them???

Al :HB:HB
 
:u

I won't be harvesting any elderberries this year ...
 
Heat and drought. This is establishment year for the cultivated elders, so nothing from them. The others are shriveled up BBs that aren't worth the trouble. Just wait til next year though! :)
 
BobF said:
Heat and drought. This is establishment year for the cultivated elders, so nothing from them. The others are shriveled up BBs that aren't worth the trouble. Just wait til next year though! :)
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that Bob but the weather is what it is.
 
Went out and picked this am. Was very careful to only take the darkest of the dark berries. Managed 6 lbs 9 oz this am. Based on the limited quantity that floated I probably could have picked 70% of what was darkk on the plant. With all the rain the berries are between 3/16" and 1/4" in size and very juicy. We need a few sunny warm days now to ripen the remainder of the plant. Will be out Tuesday after work again to pick again.

Take so far this season is 68-69 lbs.
 
Hey, at least -somebody- is getting berries this year!

OAN, I have a York and an Adams in my nursery in pots. They both grew like crazy this year. I plan to add them to the orchard planting this fall. Anyway, the Adams put on one drupe of berries. I picked a few of the ripe ones and mashed them in my hand. The juice is -clear-! And they taste much sweeter than the wild ones!

My plan is to see how they do and gradually propagate them, replacing wild ones in the orchard with these over time, depending on how much better they produce and the relative quality of the fruit. So far, so good, but I'm curious about the clear juice.
 
We are very happy, get to go out and pick elders after lunch. The big storm at the end of June knocked a bunch of first year canes to the ground so we wont get a record crop, but after blanking last year we are happy just to see some. Priority is going to be to dry some for meads. Crackedcork
 
Picked berries after work with my 5 y/o. After cleaning I ended up with 9 lbs 4 oz. Total since I started picking is at right around 77 lbs. Will hit the bush again over the weekend and then that will probably be it for this location.
 
Got another 6 lbs this morning. That bush is done. May check a few others not sure. I have 83 lbs total now so I should be able to get 10+ gallons of fairly concentrated elderberry wine started. May plan on steaming next Friday.
 
ffemt128 said:
Got another 6 lbs this morning. That bush is done. May check a few others not sure. I have 83 lbs total now so I should be able to get 10+ gallons of fairly concentrated elderberry wine started. May plan on steaming next Friday.
Click to expand...
Congrats on the size of your harvest. That's great! I intend to steam juice some of my elders as well.

Jim
 

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