every HOMESTEADER should GROW this berry! Elderberry

Well, hello and welcome back to the log cabin today, as you can see, it's a beautiful day. I don't even have my coat on we have seven inches of snow and now it's almost gone so I thought it would be a perfect day to cut my elderberries and I even have a special visitor coming to help me today I even have a cabin here now it seems that my greenhouse has become my little junk drawer don't look at

this

now but we have to work on that a little later now I'm going to get my lapper and get to work Terry Durham from River Hills Harvest and he has the biggest producers of algebra juice in the United States.

Do you think I believe it? We do it

every

day. You're one of those original hippies, right? Haha, well. We've been farmers since the '70s, so we're still at it. It's our 43rd year. Well, that's amazing because you have a good product and you've taught me a lot about L. Alright,

this

is the perfect day, there's no more snow. nice and warm, it's been dormant enough to cut the plants back so I think we

should

take some of these elderberries out and make them into a new propagation so you can have even more here in the field, okay come on Terry , because?

Would people want to

grow

alder berries? Well, you know, it's like having our nature. They are nature's medicine cabinet right in your backyard. You can make your own medicine with them. You can eat them. You can make cakes with them. It's good for the Earth. and it's good for us and I think

every

one

should

have some

grow

ing in their gardens and these are nice plants that you have here, you've put them in, it's been two years, two years need to be cut, do you remember we planted them? these yeah, well why don't you remind us because we have a lot of new subscribers here.

Well, elder

berry

is great for chickens, you know, just two berries a day will keep them from getting coccidiosis, bird flu, great diseases that help and it's also in good shape for them and they love to be under so around From the chicken coop here they have a nice habitat, yes, it is very fun. Doug and I like to observe carefully. They'll be down here and they'll jump and try to reach the berries, I mean it's very entertaining and it's definitely been a must. We've had a lot of fun having them here, so I'm really happy that you helped us plan them here.

Well, they will be much thicker once we finish trimming them. The first thing we're going to do is cut them off as much as we can and prune them down to the ground, so go ahead and start cutting them off, cut off what you can and then we'll remove them if you want to trim them back. Bring them down to the ground so they can grow from the root system. Let's cut this one-year cut. We like to do it down to the ground. It is very important to get them to the ground. the soil when you can because then it will come out of the roots below when it comes up from the roots it has much more stability it will not fall or break almost as easily.

Now we have made some really nice branches. here and we're going to cut them into cuttings now then we can't take any more then you can have more we can plan a whole row of fences you have a nice elder

berry

hedge now we're talking we can feed everyone well the birds love it The chickens love it and the They also love land. Oh, the

elderberry

has a very close relationship with the micro rhizomes and the things in the soil, that whole network down there will feed 20% of your carbohydrates or the energy in it. to the organisms in the soil to keep them all healthy give them little places to eat okay let's take these cuttings take them out to the porch we'll cut them into small pieces and I'll show you how to keep them. for spring, so Terry, how do you know which ones to choose to make the best cuttings?

Well the best wood is one year old stems and there will be a long piece like this, it's fine and it has good healthy wood. So let's cut it, cut it into pieces, we'll make a couple of cuts here to have a couple of smaller twigs, this one is very tough, it's got a good shape now, if you look at this cut, the

elderberry

is in front. Sprouted, you can see there are two buds coming out on both sides, it has a little section of stem and then two more buds, so the idea of ​​what we're going to try to do is get to the bottom about an inch lower.

Those bottom two bugs and we make a 45 degree cut, then we're going to move two shoots up here, we're going to cut them right there and that makes a nice elderberry cut. Look, it has a 45 degree angle at the bottom. that in the soil about two inches deep and you'll be there, it'll sprout from the bottom and form leaves from the top and you'll have a whole new plant from that little cut that we have enough here in this pile to make. a big line you're talking about now is about to do with one year old ones, so what happens if you use one that's three years old?

They're just bigger pieces in older wood, it's harder to cut and they don't sprout as well. like the new, then the one year old twigs have to make the young pops appear good, the best appears, okay, we should go ahead with this and cut it all off, yes, it seems like you've done it before us. We sell a lot of cuttings to people all over the world, everyone needs them in their garden, you know, and we love helping young farmers start growing elderberries because it's a great opportunity for them, yeah, and then a lot of these people and, if they grow them, I Do you know that many times you buy them?

We try to buy all the berries we can find because they are quite difficult to find. Most people want to use them or do something with them themselves, but we encourage people to grow them. It's a great cash crop to have on the farm, we have great training, in fact we have a training coming up in June and then we'll have another one in March, the mentoring training is in March, that's where we prepare people to put in commercial plantings in nests in Missouri, everyone here in Missouri, Missouri, you know, they have more elderberries growing commercially than any other berry, that's great, and then you know what I wanted to talk to you about is the difference between our North American berries here compared with other countries, well, sambucus grows.

Elderberry grows on all continents, but they are different plants and the one we have here in North America is quite different from the one in Europe, but most of the medicines that we can find in stores are made from the European one. Where you buy dried elderberries, they're almost always European, so American elderberry just has more antioxidants and we really like to promote it, we think it's better for people, you don't have to worry about the potential cyanide in elderberry. American elderberry. I spent five years doing research to show that it doesn't have the cyanide and American elderberry potential that the Europeans have, so if you buy dried berries, you still have to address that by boiling them or heating them a lot and they lose a lot of antioxidants when you do that, but they have so much medicine they will still work, but it's not the best you can get, so you know, by American grow American or American grow American, you know that this elderberry is a native plant.

It grows all over the country, we've worked with

homesteader

s and farmers all over and I think I'm going to have a full hedge here, yeah, plant them two feet apart in no time, you know, if you're planting for your home garden or for your farm, you only need about 20 feet of elderberries 1015 cuttings cared for in a row we will give you all the medicine your family will want you will be able to eat I want the one that will keep everyone healthy you will have some left for the birds even yes, that's what I like it, you know, I like that everyone gets a little bit of that because when I saw that when we worked with the chickens, the chickens had a great time and you know they go and look for their shade in the It's summer and they eat the berry, like that I think I need to get a lot more elderberries.

Let's show you what we're going to do with them now until it's time to plant them. You can, you can. I have a lot of cutters in there, so I have a couple of jars, I put some paper towels in the bottom and then what do we do now? Well, now we want to try to orient the cuttings so that the 45 degree angles are facing downwards. and then we'll put them right there in that jar and that wet paper towel will keep it nice and moist. It will be good if everything sinks, so you can put a small lid on top. of that to keep them nice and moist, fit in there, yeah, and then some of these shorter ones while we put them in this other one and we'll just put a little bit of water in there and they'll just sprout. the counter and you've got some nice little plants growing there, mate, and they can watch them go.

Yes, my little elder babies, and you can give them away when people come to visit. Perfect, we like to use the cuttings we want them to be. you already know this size, which is about the size of a pencil, until you know this slightly larger size. We cut three-quarters of an inch to a quarter of an inch and they make the best cuttings, so you can plant them right now if you want to go outside. in the garden, sticking this spike into the ground on that deep fact, we're going to plant one right now with the spike facing down, just stick them into the ground about two inches, bring the bottom shoots here by the chicken coop, that'll be nice and fertile.

Now they're going to grow fast, that was easy, so now that I've filled my jar, I'm going to put a flat on the right and then what's the problem? Do you want to keep the moisture in there so they stay moist and last? I've been liking it for quite some time, well you'll have to keep putting a little bit of moisture in there to make sure it stays nice and moist, but I'm not okay, it's just not quite century, we'd like to use Spagna moss. so it works well and if you don't have a big enough jar you can use a plastic bag, so I'm not going to put a lid on this one of course, I'm just going to use it like I just put it on. fresh cut flowers and maybe I'll have it in bud and keep it on my counter and enjoy it and within two weeks they'll all be out there.

You have a nice little bouquet of baby elderberries. Where do I keep this in the meantime? The refrigerator is probably the best place to store it because it's going to keep it around, you know, thirty to forty degrees in there and it'll store for months like that, okay, and we'll put it in our roots. I like a basement. it's going to work fine so we've got it all ready so now we're going to make it and Al is very cordial and what is a cordial Terry well a cordial is like a syrup made with honey it's a lot better than using that white sugar so We are going to prepare the cordial, we will add cloves and cinnamon and a little honey to sweeten the juice.

Here we have one of our fun elderberry kits and we'll see what we have here for you to use. make the delicious cordial you have instructions some freeze-dried elderberries a muslin bag inside this muslin bag we have a cinnamon stick and some cloves you have cloves and cinnamon sticks and some freeze-dried berries all the berries you can make this is all A glass jar is needed and you will need a strainer and a funnel or two cups of hot water for best results. We'd like to bring it to a boil and then let it sit for a minute or two and then we're going to put in our spices, it's like making tea.

I know a lot of people immediately put boiling water on something, you want to let it sit for a bit, so that's what I did. I boiled the water. I let it sit a little bit and now it's time to put two cups in here. I can't see where the wife is. You're doing well? A little more. There we go perfect. We can only have two. Shall we put this? a little mesh bag so it doesn't get in the berries when we strain them, we're just going to put it in there, put the lid on, a little spice ball, let it sit there for a few minutes and then we're going to add the freeze-dried after about five minutes of tea infusion and steeping moments late, well, moments late, it's been about five minutes.

I think we can add the freeze dried elderberries now that we love freeze dried elderberries. because they've got all the good stuff in them so I put it all in and I put it all in there look at it go and see it goes in instantly now we can just put the lid on it now ready for five minutes and then I'll strain it well it's been about five minutes. I think it's time to strain the berries. I don't want to put that there. We left all those berries because we will use them later. Perfect, let's just throw them in. here in this bowl, so we'll use them for something else, now I don't want to waste them, I have to use every part of this thing, waste what you didn't let drain, rinse that, rinse it and let's pour the juice.

Back, man, just do it, yeah, I already touched on the measure. I'm measuring it again here. One thing, if you don't know, glass jars have measurement measurements. One cup, two cups. I know for me I was using them. forever and I had no idea it was there. I'm like oh my gosh I could use that okay it's like this two cups of good juice and we're going to put 1 cup of honey or you can use any type of sweetener you want you can use a gobby you can use molasses you can use sugar yeah wantanything a cup there will sweeten it you don't need your good eye let me know when it's there a cup is good that will be delicious is that honey from your own lives is oh that will be so good sargans that feed The bees know that what we have to do is put the lid, shake it a little bit, put that honey into suspension and then it's ready, you can keep it in the refrigerator now for several weeks and then when when I take this every day it's best, but if you start to get the flu or feel a a little depressed, then you'll want to take a small injection, a couple of tablespoons at a time, and if you start to get tired of feeling like you're sick, you can take it up to three times a day with an eight-hour interval now to give you good coverage of healing for the entire new system.

Oh yeah, we all need a little boost here to keep you from catching the flu. Helps regulate your blood. sugar, there's a lot of different things for us and now we're going to make something really special that Doug and I will eat a little later your dinner, yeah, with the rest of the Valda berry, so we'll try to make an elderberry. Chutney I love Japanese and a lot of people don't know what a chutney is, but it's like a condiment or some kind of sauce and we're going to use it on top of our burgers tonight, we're going to eat burgers because you're not.

I want to waste any of those elderberries now we've done one thing with them now we're going to do another well today you're the chef whatever listen we're going to mix these ingredients together we've got the leftover freeze dried berries that we just took out. After making our poor gem, we are going to add an apple that we have already chopped, a big apple, a nice onion fresh from the garden, yes, fresh from our garden, then we have some ginger, let's put a teaspoon of ginger there. I like the way you do it. Me neither. My mom taught me how to pour it.

Now you can use curry or this is kind of a mix, but curry or you can put all the different types. of things in the chutney, put that in there a little bit, we can adjust it more Indian flavor, you know, I didn't know you, a little bit of salt and you're going to need 1/2 cup of that vinegar, apple cider vinegar, so we're going to put that. on the stove and sauté until it goes down and gets nice and thick and those onions and apples cook with the elderberry, it will be delicious, nutritious, I don't want it too hot on the stove, but you want it to cook down to get those onions and the apples and everything else to cook it, if I take about 10 or 15 minutes for it to thicken and turn into the nice chutney, we don't let it burn, we don't want to burn it and actually this is perfect for a day like Today my stove is perfect, it's not too hot, it's Charlie, very good Cimarron, oh that looks so beautiful with the color of the elderberries and there's still a lot of power left in everything, it looks good, I can't wait , That would be great.

I'm very happy about this and that you came today because it will be great on our burgers tonight. It is well thickened. That's it. I'm going to place it here. There's a lighter for dinner and now we have one more thing to show you. now everyone's favorite this is one of my favorites and I think it's great because it's like the original soda it's a bush. I love bushes, you can make them with all kinds of fruits, but today we are going to make one. of freeze-dried elderberries and it's the easiest thing in the world, so we're going to take a cup of our freeze-dried elderberries and we're going to put a cup of vinegar in that jar, use good apple cider. vinegar you know you always want to use a live vinegar that has a good mother when you get your vinegars you want to make sure they're cloudy you don't want them to be clear I always say if it's clear stay away from that you want it to be cloudy so I put my cup on of apple cider vinegar in there, I threw out the cup of freeze dried elderberries Joe, these are American freeze dried elderberries, that's River Hills harvest, get those elderberries, freeze dried American elderberries and now let's put it in 1 cup of honey, perfect, now all we have to do is put the lid on there and shake it for a few minutes, like you were going to make butter in a jar or something.

Well, exercise today, it only takes about five minutes to soak. in that vinegar and this will be ready to use, we'll strain it after about five. You know, I love bushes. I've been playing with them for a long time and the first bush I made was one that Hippocrates, but formula Heba had to make it and it's super stable, you don't need to have refrigeration once it's made, you never need to heat it up, so it keeps all those great nutrients there and almost all the first soft drinks we made. with a bush I know they used to use them and it's funny because you're the first person that got me hooked on bushes and I've made a lot of different types of bushes, even with herbs that you can use.

I love one when they are actually my favorite. it's the lemon balm lemon balm lemon balm shrimp it's so good yeah it's my favorite and you got me hooked on that one so I use them and I love them so much and even when people come over it's a special treat Oh what kind of bush we are going to have today, you can drink it like this. I love using it in salad dressings and have gotten to where I use it in cooking all the time just to add a little more flavor. Anything that needs a little bit. of vinegar and there are so many different types of brain, these berries and you guys are getting so many different little recipes, aren't you today?

Well the flu season has started and every time you use the Helder berries to cook with the e to make Juice Bush Chutney, you will get something healthy and this one will be a little sweeter so I am going to make another chutney with this e You could even put some nuts in it, the honey makes it a little slower to strain. therapeutic, although looking at it you are a little out of it, we have already strained it, so now it's time to show you how to drink your straw. My favorite way is to use mineral water and I like this Chico top with that beautiful, okay.

You do the honors, okay, let's grab some from the bush. I usually do 1/3 bush to two thirds mineral water or glass oh boy I like it over the counter it tastes good let's take it to 20 20 20 20 it's good health hmm wait delicious that was Quan teri yeah we did everything and they were so much fun, kid today, yeah, you know, the only two cups of freeze-dried Alva berries, American elderberry, it was just amazing and I had a lot of fun and I liked it. you're helping and especially pruning my plants and getting them ready for spring again, they look good now and I made this really nice little guide and if you need to get some elderberries you can go to our website. at river hills harvest calm we sell freeze dried elderberries there and we will have those fun elderberry kits available very soon we will have them for you we have juice and we have lots of cuttings and this is the time of year to order your cuttings.

River Hills harvests in stride and you'll be able to see us all over the country at different festivals and you'll be able to see Terry. He will be at the Home Lighting Conference in August, so the links will be below. Well, we've had a lot of fun here. today and I would love to see you come to the website, pick some elderberries, pick some cuttings, grow some good elderberries and your gardens or start growing some. We'd love to help you start farming for a little extra income, so come on over. to River Hills Harvest Tranquil, you can sign up for our newsletter there and we'll keep you up to date on all of our events and programs that we're running around the country and come see me at the Homesteaders Life conference here in Hannibal. when it happens, that's right and then if you're interested, make sure you click the link below if you want that sheet on how to make the cuts, which is totally awesome.

I really appreciate you coming. I had a lot of fun, thank you. for having me here and it's good to see you guys