Tag: elderberries

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Rain is Good / Elderberry Season is Coming

We are happy to see the elderberries starting to flower. As you are driving across eastern NC and you see a clump of white flowers this year, it might be elderberry. They are super common in NC.

I enjoy growing and harvesting elderberries. They make such a distinctive syrup and jelly. This year we have started harvesting a limited number of elderflowers. The picture you see below shows the elderflowers that we freezed dried for use in salve and infused honey.

Right now I’m infusing coconut oil with comfrey, elderflower and beewax to make a salve. This is my first time making a comfrey salve. It will be interesting how the salve turns out.

Sometimes I worry that pictures will get repetitive when I show similar scenes. The trees, bushes, fruit and berries are definitely growing and hopefully that comes through in the pictures. Some of the flower blooms are amazing right now.

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Let Us Prune Elderberries

It is that time. Join us as we prune our elderberries. We’ll have a great morning learning to prune elderberries and also learning to plant the cuttings. The cost of the class includes a 1/2 lb of honey from the farm and cuttings so you can plant your own elderberries. Please sign up below so we know how many people to expect.

Event Schedule on Saturday, March 8th

Take Aways from the Event

You’ll learn how to

  1. prune elderberries and make cuttings to plant
  2. plant elderberries

Experience

  1. pruning elderberry plants
  2. planting elderberry cuttings

Bring home (included in the ticket cost)

  • enough elderberry cuttings to start your own elderberry patch
  • 1 lb of honey from the farm

Agenda on Saturday

9:00 AM – Welcome

9:15-Noon
Demonstration – how to prune elderberry bushesPractical – prune elderberries and take home elderberry cuttings so you can grown your own elderberry plants.

Demonstration – how to plant elderberries
Practical – plant elderberries and comfrey

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Making Elderberry Syrup

Link to image file↗

It is that time of year. Time to make elderberry syrup! FoxNews just did a story talking about the benfits of elderberries (click on the image below to read the story)


How we make the syrup

The first step is to put the elderberries in a steam juicer. The steam juicer creates a juice extract from the elderberrries. The extract from the steam juicer is reduced (over heat) to approximately half the volume that came from the steam juicer. Once the juice has cooled to less than 120 degrees, it is ready for the honey. The reduced juice is mixed with an equal part of honey from our place in the mountains. The goal is to keep the majority of the honey below a temperature of 105 degrees. The honey and juice mixes best at warmer temperatures but we don’t want to get the honey too warm and lose the natural properties of the raw honey. We measure the temperature of the juice as it is cooling and then mix the honey and liquid together once the reduced liquid reach a temperature of 120 degrees.

Frozen elderberries going in the steam juicer
Elderberry syrup in a squeeze bottle
First time we have put elderberry syrup in a squeeze bottle
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First Comfrey Harvest

Over the past year we have been planting comfrey in the food forest. We have also started planting comfrey with many of the trees and bushes that we plant. Comfrey is a great plant that has several jobs on the farm. These jobs (also known as function stacking for the permaculture crowd) include:

  • ground cover that suppresses grass and weeds for the plants and trees that we plant the comfrey around
  • living mulch that we can chop and drop in the fall to compost in place
  • medicinal plant that can be used in a salve or poultice

Today, we harvested enough comfrey leaves to make a full run in the freeze dryer. The plan is to freeze dry the comfrey and then make a salve. I’ve never made anything before with comfrey so this will be a new experience

We plan to offer comfrey on demand. When an order is placed, we’ll schedule a day for porch pickup in Sanford (most likely a Saturday). This allows you to have comfrey that was harvested earlier in the day. Next year we hope to offer comfrey root cuttings so you can plant your own comfrey.

The picture below shows comfrey leaves ready to go into the freezer and then the freeze dryer.

Elderberry Harvest Continues

We are still harvesting elderberry. The dry weather in June seems to have caused us to have smaller berries this year, but we are still getting a nice harvest.

Figs Growing Taller and Taller

It is nice to see our fig trees continue to grow. Many of them are covered with figs. We can’t wait to try them

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Potato Growing Class Wraps Up

We have a great time during the last session of our potato growing class. I am proud to say that we finished with 100% of the people that started the class. We had a nice harvest of potatoes. It was great to work with everyone for a class spanning several months

Currently Available Produce

This week we have

  • elderberries
  • garlic (very limited supply)
  • raw honey from the farm in Bennett
  • raw honey from Troublesome Gap
  • goji berries (you pick – email to schedule a time)

Visit our online store to place your order. We do porch pickups in Sanford, NC. Just select “porch pickup” as a shipping option when you place your order. Visit the online store here or click on the “Store” link at the top of the page.

Lack of Rain and Hot, but Some Plants Do Well

The fig trees are loving the high temperatures and growing like crazy. The warm spell in Feb of 2023 caused a lot of damage to our figs but now they are recovering nicely. The birds are enjoying the seeds from the sunflower heads

Future Plans

We have a wooded section on the farm comprising several acres. This part of the property was actively farmed 30 years ago. One of the goals for the farm is have a park like appearance. Having a beautful farm adds to the enjoyment.

The are several areas that were previously terraced and farmed but are now tree covered. We would like to reclaim an area for growing elderberries. There is an area with great microclimate. There is also flow of rainwater draining off the field that we can manage to provide an area that won’t need irrigation.

We’ve been working to manage the area grown up areas to

  • build abundance
  • return part of that abundance to the land and wildlife
  • provide a home for wildlife, diverse native plants and insects
  • provide pollinating plants for the bees on the farm and other pollinators

The first step is to have a plan that is open to pivoting. I’m realizing how important it is to be able change plans are we learn and discover more about farming and about our property. The next step is to remove brush, dead trees and small trees that don’t support the goals of the plan. This week I had an opportunity to do some work with the bush hog. Here are some pictures of the results.

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Elderberries Incoming!

We have started picking elderberries from our food forest. Please contact me if you are interested in placing an order. We don’t use any insecticides or pesticides. The fertilizer we use on them is organic.

You can order your elderberries here (select “porch pickup” under shipping options for local pickup in Tramway)

Raspberries

We have been trying a variety of raspberries that was developed for the climate in this area. Many raspberries just won’t tolerate the warmer tempertures here (zone 8a). That is why you see raspberries mainly in the mountains. The plants came from Rabbit Ridge Berry Farm in Coats, NC. We have bought friut bearing trees and bushes from them. They have great products and are wonderful to work with. They also have a u-pick farm.

Blueberries

This is our first year of having a blueberry harvest, even a small one. Previously our plants were too young, so we pulled the berries when they first formed to encourage the plant to put its energy into the plant instead of the fruit. The first of the blueberries are almost ready to harvest. I can’t wait to have blueberry pancakes.

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Getting Young Trees Ready for Summer

The project this week was getting the young trees ready for summer. This involves pulling off the anti-deer cages, weeding around the trees and then putting mulch around the base of the trees. The mulch helps to keep the soil around the tree moist. It also helps trap water when we water the trees during the summer months. As the mulch breaks down, it will also provide nutrients to the trees.

The elderberries are coming right along. We are looking forward to having a great elderberry harvest.

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Farm Tours! – Our Annual Fun Day on the Farm

Thanks to everyone who came. We had 16 attendees from 8 families. What a great day. We shared about permaculture, design thinking, innovation and regenerative farming. Attendes learned about how we go about building good soil so the plants, trees and bushes thrive. We also talked about how we farm without insecticides or pesticides. Attendees also learned how we do function stacking so many plants on the farm have multiple jobs.

We also had a meal for people who have attended our classes. It was nice sharing a meal with familiar faces. Thanks to everyone who attended. Also, thanks to everyone that helps make the farm a success.

One of the new items we showed off on the farm tour is our growing cadre our medicinal plants. We now have

  • comfrey
  • witch hazel
  • white yarrow
  • motherwort
Motherwort is planted and ready to grow

Here are some views from the farm this weekend

My opportunity to share about our farm

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So Much Growth

The warm rains have helped kick off so much green on the farm. It is nice to watch everything grow. The fall and winter test plantings of fig, elderberry and pawpaw in the back field are growing well. We’ve had a few figs that might not make it, but overall it is looking good.

I hope you enjoy the pictures from this week.