How and when to harvest sea buckthorn: methods and adaptations
Sea buckthorn is a unique plant... It is both a very useful food product and a medicine that treats everything from skin burns to heart diseases. To forget what vitamin deficiency is, a person needs to eat 100 g of this berry per day.
But, despite all the value of sea buckthorn, few people decide to pick berries on their own. All because this the process is very time consuming and time consuming. But this is only for those who do not know how to do it correctly.
In this article, you will learn what are the rules for collecting sea buckthorn, as well as what devices can simplify this hard work.
How to determine that it is possible to harvest sea buckthorn: ripening dates in the Moscow region, in the Urals and in Siberia
After ripening, the sea buckthorn berries acquire an orange color. At the same time, they are so tightly planted on the branches that they resemble the cobs of corn.
This is what makes the harvesting process difficult. Therefore, it is important to know in what period the berries break off the easiest way.
To correctly determine the timing of collection, you need to immediately decide what you will do with the berries.
If you plan to eat fresh sea buckthorn, or make a compote or jam from it, then it will be easier to remove the berry at the very beginning of ripening.
Despite the fact that ripe sea buckthorn will remain on the branches for a very long time, over time it will become softer. It is almost impossible to pick such a berry without damaging the delicate skin.
The beginning of the ripening of the fruits of the plant (in central Russia and the Moscow region, in the Urals and in Siberia) falls on the end of summer, the beginning of the autumn months. At this time, the berry has the highest concentration of vitamin C, and it is better to eat it fresh.
If you are going to make sea buckthorn oil or juice, it is better to wait a few weeks and start harvesting in mid-autumn. By this time, the berry will be well juiced, and you will get much more product from one tree.
As with all fruit plants, the ripening time of a berry cannot be strictly fixed. It all depends on the weather conditions. If the spring thaw began early, then the sea buckthorn can start ripening a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
They spread polyethylene under the trees and begin to tap the trunk and large branches with a stick. The frozen berries fall to the ground, while remaining intact.
You can apply this method without waiting for the winter period, just cut the berries together with small twigs and put them in the freezer at home overnight. Once the berries are frozen, you can easily separate them from the branches.
Plucking the berry along with the branches, you need to be very careful... It is very easy to damage the tree if you break off branches rather than carefully cutting with pruning shears.
The sea buckthorn tree is usually covered with berries. But, when using this method you can't cut too many branchesotherwise, the plant may be left without a crop next year.
This is not the only way to make it easier to harvest sea buckthorn, there are quite a few of them. The laboriousness of this process forces people to be smart and invent unusual devices and tools to pick the berry.
Methods, devices, tools and devices to facilitate picking berries from a branch
There are the following ways to harvest sea buckthorn:
- Picking berries with your hands... The most unpretentious method, but at the same time very laborious and not always effective. The fact is that the soft skin easily breaks off the stalk, while the berry cracks, and the juice flows right into your hands.
- Cutting berries with tongs or nail scissors... This method will keep the berries intact, but it takes no less time than picking with your hands.
- Cutting berries together with branches... More about this has already been discussed above. Not the most humane method in relation to the plant.
- Getting sea buckthorn juice straight from the tree... A rather original method, but if your goal is sea buckthorn juice, then it will greatly facilitate your work. Place a container for juice under a tree branch and slowly run your hand over it from base to tip, while crushing the berries. Thus, for an hour of labor, you can get up to 4 liters of sea buckthorn juice.
If you collect sea buckthorn in large quantities, then manual methods will not work for you. Berry picking tools and devices will come in handy:
- "Cobra"... The most popular folk invention. To make it, you need a small piece of wood, a handle will be made of it, and a thin wire of steel. We make a loop out of the wire so that it resembles the wick of a burning candle in outline. Using an awl, attach the loop to the wooden handle. From the side, this device will look like a snake. With its help, you can easily and quickly extract berries by cutting off their stalks. The device will allow you to get to the most inaccessible places in the tree.
- Scraper... To make this device, we need a steel wire covered with an aluminum sheath, about 50 cm long. In the middle of a piece of wire, you need to make one curl, like a spring. To do this, you can make one turn of the wire around the neck of the glass bottle. The ends of the scraper should be aligned and bent to one side at an angle of 90 degrees. With such a device, you can press the twig and peel the berries from it, moving the scraper down.
- Slingshot with a string of fishing line... Hold the branch with one hand and cut the berries off with the other using this homemade tool.
- "Tube" - another effective device to clear ripe berries from the tree. To make it yourself, take a tin can, and from the blank cut out of it, twist a tube about 100 mm in length and with a diameter that exceeds the sea buckthorn berries by about 4 mm. Wrap the resulting tube with electrical tape, leaving a little space around the edges, and attach a plastic bag to it from below. The way to use this device is very simple - bring it to the stem with the upper part and press lightly. The cut berries will smoothly roll down the tube into the bag, without any damage.
But harvesting is only half the battle... It will be a shame if your work is wasted and the berries cannot be saved. Therefore, we will consider the ways in which you can preserve the berry for a long time.
An easy way to harvest sea buckthorn:
How to store it correctly
Most of the benefits are brought by berries that have not been heat-treated. It is with these storage methods that we will begin.
Cut branches of sea buckthorn can be stored until spring... To do this, you need to hang them in a cool room, the air temperature of which does not rise above 0 degrees.
It is important that it is dry there, excess moisture will immediately provoke decay processes.
Freezing... The washed berries must be put in plastic bags and put into the freezer. Thanks to the quick freezing, the berry will retain the maximum of its nutrients.
Sea buckthorn covered with sugar... The method also allows you to keep the berries fresh until spring. Sort out the sea buckthorn and lay it out on a towel to dry. Then mix the berry with sugar and place in sterilized jars.
The amount of sugar should be equal to the mass of the berries. You can store the workpiece only in the refrigerator. It is very convenient to use for quick preparation of compote or fruit drink in winter.
Mashed berry... Well-ripened, juicy fruits are better suited for this method. Go through the sea buckthorn after harvesting, rinse well and let it dry a little. Then mix with granulated sugar in equal proportions and heat with a wooden pestle.
You can also use a meat grinder or blender. Put the resulting mixture in jars, close with nylon lids and lower it into the cellar, or put it in the refrigerator.
Storing sea buckthorn in water... Not the most well-known method, however, it is quite effective. Pour fresh berries with cooled boiled water and refrigerate.
Sea buckthorn juice Is not only a storehouse of nutrients, but also a product with a low calorie content (52 kcal per 100 g). It is quite simple to prepare it; for this, pass the sea buckthorn through a juicer and pour it into jars.
Be sure to put the cans on sterilization. Place the rolled up juice in the refrigerator or basement. If desired, you can add sugar, honey, or other berries and fruits to it.
The high temperature will destroy some of the nutritional components, but all the same, natural homemade sweets for tea will be healthier than sweets and cookies from the store.
Nature has created many drug products for us, which not only delight us with their taste, but also heal our body. Sea buckthorn can be safely attributed to such natural gifts.
Now you should not be intimidated by the difficulty of picking this berry, in the coming season you can safely go to the forest to stock up on a useful product, and, using effective storage methods, prepare sea buckthorn for a whole year.
