Tag: elderberry

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Farm Tours Coming on Saturday, June 21st

Join Us and Tour Our Farm

Sharing the story behind an adventure is a great way to share the experience and learnings. Starting the farm has definitely been an adventure. Let us take a hour or two and talk about what we’ve learned and experienced along the way. Much of what we’ve done on the farm can be applied applied in your garden or front yard. Maybe you want to have a few fruit trees. We’ll share how to get started in a practical way.

Every year we do a farm tour day. This is a great chance to meet the farmers and see the farm. in progress. We do tours once per year.

Tickets

Tickets for tours are available at 10AM and 1:00PM. The version of the tour for people wanting to start a homestead is at 3PM.

Click Here to purchase your tickets

Farm tour includes

– detailed tour (family friendly)
– 1/2 lb of honey from our remote mountain location of Troublesome Gap, NC

What to Bring

Just bring yourself and your family and comfortable shoes. We plan to walk on grassy fields and uneven ground.

We are Dirt Farmers and Pesticide / Insecticide Free

If we grow good dirt, then plants will grow and produce abundantly. We use a minimum of organic fertlizers. We avoid the use of synthetic fertilizers. We also don’t use any pesticides or insecticides. We do use natural amendments like woodchips, hay (pesticide / herbicide free) and feather meal.

Diversity of Plants and Trees on the Farm

Let us introduce you to some of the variety of plants, bushes and trees on the farm including

Row Crops
– garlic

Fruit Bearing Trees
– mulberry
– hazel
– black walnut
– figs
– persimmon
– pawpaw
– plumcot
– plum
– apricot
– peaches
– quince
– medlar
– pomegranate
– jujube

Fruit Bearing Bushes
– blueberry
– goji berry
– elderberry
– blackberry
– beautyberry
– goumi berry
– raspberry
– chokeberry / aronia

Specialty
– native cactus (edible / nopales)
– honey bees

Medicinal
– comfrey
– witch hazel
– elderberry

Harvesting Elderflower

This week we harvested more elderflower.

Elderflower

We also snacked on mulberries

Mulberries, a great snack

I hope you enjoy the pictures

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Watching the Fruit Grow

As the springs days progress, the trees and bushes are growing like crazy. I keep thinking I shouldn’t show similar pictures, but I realized those pictures show the progression of the fruit and berries growing and ripening

Activities included weedeating around the honey locust saplings and the trees in the back field. Also adding mulch to trees on the farm. We added a trickle charger to the golf cart. That wil make keeping it charged so much easier.

It is nice seeing our first Medlar tree blooms. It would be nice to have a few medlar fruit to try this fall.

The mulberry trees have sooooo many fruit on them. It will be nice to enjoy the mulberries.

This year we plan to harvest a few of the elderberries and freeze dry them. I’ve ordered an infuser from Levo so we can make elderflower infused honey. Using an infuser will also be a great way to make comfrey salve.

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Pruning on the Farm and More Bees

What beautiful weather this weekend. We’ve had several Saturdays in a row where the weather was just gorgeous. This weather definitely makes for a relaxing day.

Successful Elderberry Pruning Class

Thanks to everyone that came to our elderberry pruning and planting class. We had a wonderful time. We sent many of the elderberry cuttings to WNC to help with stream bank retention for areas damaged by the hurricane.

Expanded Apiary

New home for the bees

Moving the bees to the back field gives us room to expand the number of hives. We hope to have 10 hives in place for this year. I’ve been surprised by the number for people that want local honey. The bees are a great example of function stacking. The bees pollinate the trees and bushes while producing honey

Blueberries Needed Pruning

These blueberry plants are two years old. We have 22 blueberry plants on the farm. 20 on the HugelKultur mound and 2 in the back field (as a test planting). They were not pruned when they were originally planted 2 years ago. This was their very first pruning, we did leave a few cross branches but they weren’t rubbing on other branches so we chose to leave them for this year. Next year they will be pruned away. We did have a small bowl of blueberries last year but this year we are expecting bigger and better harvest. Here are the before and after photos

Blueberry plant needing to be pruned

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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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Upcoming Availability and Harvest

Its been a busy year on the farm. Many of our plantings will take years before we will have a crop.

Here are some upcoming crops that we hope to have available for sale soon:

  • elderberries
  • honey (local, from the farm)
  • garlic – one crop per year so make sure to order all you need for the year (should be available in 2-3 weeks)
  • onions – one crop per year so make sure to order all you need for the year
  • figs – very limited quanties
  • blackberries – limited quantities

We don’t use pesticides or insecticides on our crops and practice low-till regenerative farming.

We’ll send out an email when we know exact dates of availability. Thanks for following along with our journey.

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Our Love Affair with Elderberries

Elderberry plants are robust and easy to grow in most of NC. The umbrals are easy to harvest. The flowers and the berries have many healthy uses. We have found that many people don’t realize the healthy benefits from elderberries growing in the ditch that they drive by every day on the commute to and from work. However, a surprising number of people take a teaspoon of elderberry syrup every day during the fall and winter to help fight off colds.

Elderberry is a plant of contrasts. Join us and walk through some of these contrasts. Let us share what we have learned by growing this amazing plant.

Elderberry flowers
Elderberries almost ready to harvest

Elderberries grow wild in NC, usually on a ditch bank or in wet soil. They are everywhere, but many of the wild plants are in locations that are hard to reach at the time of harvest. If you enjoy foraging, then consider adding elderberries to your summer foraging retinue. The berries you harvest will be worth it.

Elderberry plants spread along the ground and a row of elderberry plants tends to be come a hedge. If you plan ahead, it is easy enough to manage the hedge by mowing and just have to prune once a year when the plants are dormant. If you were to plant your elderberries in the middle of an area where you can’t mow around them to control spread then you might have a difficult time managing them. They can be invasive, but if you plan ahead before you plant them it really isn’t a problem.

Elderberry plants growing in a row

Harvesting elderberry umbrals is straight forward. Removing the berries from the stems can be a challenge. Some of the ways to remove berries from the umbral are easier than others. At some point in the future, it would be great to add a destemmer to the equipment we use on the farm.

This year we have making different elderberry products including:

  • elderberry syrup
  • infused elderberry honey
  • elderberry oxymel
  • liquid of elderberry
  • dehydrated elderberries
  • freeze dried liquid of elderberry
  • freeze dried elderberries

It is really cool seeing the dark, dark and luxurious purple liquid that comes from the elderberries. Especially knowing all the health benefits in the liquid.

Growing and processing elderberries has been a wonderful learning experience. We’ve enjoyed teaching how to grow elderberries in hands on classes. Thanks for letting us share with you.