Back to Work

This is my third day of work for this spring. Elmer and I saw or heard our first redwing blackbird today. We have snowdrops in fat bud if not quite in full bloom yet. We may discontinue this blog- if we do, feel free to call me at 802-785-2167, The EC Browns' Nursery in Thetford Center, VT. One thing I'm interested in for 2015 is to make juice using only Aronia melanocarpa, black chokeberry (or some feel aronia berry sounds more palatable. Previously, I've made excellent juice usinf 'aronia berries' with other frui such as Schizandra and elderberry. I have read two articles about this fruit over the winter and apparently they are widely used in Europe: by the way they seem to have more antioxidants than any other fruit and are easy to grow.

Autumn Olive Juice

Autumn olive makes very good juice- it looks strange as it is milky and slightly pink. Instead of waiting for birds to eat them all and spread this invasive plant even more, I made 4 quarts of juice. Supposedly this fruit contains high amounts of lycopine which makes it very good especially for aging men (it is helping our prostate glands). We also made several gallons of excellent, quite tart apple cider from wild trees.

Grape Juice and Apple Cider

I made all my grapes into juice and the West Newbury Congregational Church is now using my juice for communion. One batch bgurned a tiny bit so I decided to call that "smokey grape juice" and I'm not sharing that with other people. My homemade juice is not so sweet as commercial grape juice. Now, I am on to making apple cider which I freeze rather than can. When I have heated it enough to successfully can it, that ruins the flavor and it tastes like apple juice instead of apple cider. I have read that it is best to use at least three kinds of apples for cider so that is what I do and I have found that it is best to use more tart apples instead of sweeter ones. I'm planning to make dider again this weekend with wild apples which seem to make the very best cider.

Elderberry Juice

I've used all my elderberries to make juice and I only trapped one adolescent robin in the process (it was fine once I untangled it from the net protecting my berries). Besides robins, sparrows were eating my elderberries. I don't care for elderberry juice by itself: one batch was mixed with crabapple, one with several other sour berries and the best batch which I made the most recently was mixed with grape. I'm still planning to make grape juice- there are not quite ripe yet even though we've already had a frost.

Juice

I have two batches of juice ready and waiting for me to finish off tonight. I made 2 gallons of Aronia (black chokeberry), Prinsepia, Schizandra (Magnolia Vine or 5-Flavor Berry), and Elderberry juice and 3 gallons of Elderberry Dolgo Crabapple juice. I find that elderberries need something tart to hide the elderberry taste. Both of these juices should be very health loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants. I still have the grapes to deal with later and I have some apples although it's not a good apple year. Right now my hardy kiwi are ripening: we have Actinidia kolomicta 'Arctic Beauty' and 'September Sun'- only a few seem to ripen at a time so you have to squeeze them all to find the ripe ones. Possibly, if I harvested them all and put them on a plate they would ripen.

Blackberries

I'm still picking blackberries and making pies, jam and juice. Actually, blackberries alone don't make the best juice but it mixes well with other fruit. I just made some with chokecherries and I'm planning blackberry crabapple juice tonight.... I netted most of my elderberries so the stupidest birds may not get them. Hopefully the other fruit won't get eaten.

Blackberries

I'm now picking my last berries- well maybe not quite as I still should have elderberries, magnolia vine berries and aronia. However, I have quite alot of blackberries to pick that are waiting to be plucked even as I write this. It has been raining much of the day which is not what one wants with dead ripe berries: they tend to mush and rot. Dana and I made several batches of jam combining blackberries with gooseberries and black currants, also we made some sauce or jam combining red currants, gooseberries and black currants which is excellent on ice cream and meet. I've gotten behind in my weeding.