How and when to harvest buckthorn: methods and devices

Sea Buckthorn is a plant unique to .This is a useful food product, and medicine that treats everything from skin burns to heart disease. To forget what is avitaminosis, a person only needs to eat 100 g of this berry per day.

But, despite the full value of sea buckthorn, few people decide on an independent collection of berries. This is because this process is a very time consuming and requires considerable time. 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 what you can harvest buckthorn:terms of ripening in Moscow region, in the Urals and in Siberia

After ripening, the sea buckthorn berries become orange. However, they are so tightly impaled on the branches that resemble corn cobs.

This is precisely what makes harvesting difficult. Therefore, it is important to know at which period the berries are most easily cut off. .

In order to properly 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 prepare compote or jam from it, then it will be easier to remove the berry at the very beginning of ripening.

Despite the fact that the ripened sea buckthorn will stay on the branches for a very long time, over time it will become softer and softer. To break such a berry without damaging the delicate skin is almost impossible.

The beginning of the ripening of the fruit of the plant( in central Russia and Moscow region, in the Urals and in Siberia) occurs at 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 use it fresh.

The dates for collecting sea buckthorn depend on what you do with the berry: butter or juice, compote or jam

If you are going to prepare sea buckthorn oil or juice, it’s better to wait a few weeks and start collecting in the middle of autumn. By this time, the berry will be well filled with juice, and you will receive much more product from one tree.

Like all fruit plants, the ripening time of a berry cannot be strictly fixed. It all depends on weather conditions. If the spring thaw began early, then the sea buckthorn can keep up a couple of weeks earlier than it should be.

Polyethylene is spread under the trees and a trunk and large branches begin to tap with a stick. Frozen berries are showered on the ground, while remaining intact.

You can apply this method and without waiting for the winter period, simply cut the berries together with small sprigs of and place them at home in the freezer for a day. When the berries are frozen, you can easily separate them from the branches.

. It is possible to transfer the harvest of sea buckthorn to the winter: frozen berries are not damaged when harvesting

. should be careful when cutting the berry along with the branches, .It is very easy to damage a tree if you break off branches and not carefully cut the shears.

Sea buckthorn, usually, all covered with berries. But, when using this method, it is impossible to cut too many branches, otherwise, next year the plant may be left without a crop.

This is not the only way to facilitate the collection of sea buckthorn, they are quite a lot. The complexity of this process makes people be smart and invent unusual devices and tools to pick a berry.

Methods, tools, tools and devices that facilitate the gathering of berries from the branch

. There are the following methods for harvesting sea buckthorn:

1. Picking berries with the hands of .The simplest way, but very laborious and not always effective. The fact is that the soft skin is easily detached from the stem, the berry cracks and the juice flows directly into your hands.
2. Cutting berries with forceps or nail scissors .This method will keep the berries whole, but it requires no less time than cutting off with your hands.
3. Cutting berries together with branches .More about this already mentioned above. Not the most humane method in relation to the plant.
4. Obtaining sea buckthorn juice straight from the tree .Enough original way, but if your goal is sea buckthorn juice, then it will greatly facilitate your work. Place the juice container under the branch of the tree and slowly move it along your hand from the base to the tip, while crushing the berries. Thus, in an hour of labor you can get up to 4 liters of sea buckthorn juice.

There are several ways to harvest sea buckthorn with your hands.

If you collect sea buckthorn in large quantities, then manual methods will not work for you. You will need tools and devices for picking berries:

1. "Cobra" .The most popular folk invention. To make it, you will need a small piece of wood, a handle will be made of it, and a thin wire of steel. We make a loop from a wire so that it resembles in its outlines the wick of a burning candle. With the help of sewing, we attach the loop to the wooden handle. From the side, this device will look like a snake. With it, you can easily and quickly get the berries, cutting off their stem. The device will allow you to reach the most inaccessible places of the tree.

The “cobra” device for collecting sea buckthorn will make it possible to reach the most inaccessible places of the

2. tree. The scraper. For the manufacture of this device, we need a steel wire coated with an aluminum sheath, approximately 50 cm long. In the middle of the 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 a glass bottle. The ends of the scraper must be leveled and bent to one side at a 90 degree angle. Such a device can press a sprig and scrape the berries off it, pushing the scraper down.

A device for picking sea buckthorn berries with a scraper allows you to press a twig and peel off the

3. berries. Slingshot with a string from the line. Hold the branch with one hand, and the second cut from her berries with the help of this homemade device.
4. "Tubule" - another effective device to clean the tree from ripe berries. To make it yourself, take a can, and from the blank cut out of it twist the tube about 100 mm in length and about 4 mm in diameter to the sea-buckthorn berries. Wrap the resulting tube with tape, leaving some space around the edges, and attach a plastic bag to the bottom. The method of application of this device is very simple - bring it to the top of the stem and press lightly. The cut berry smoothly rolls down the bag through the tube, without any damage.

Lift the "tubule" to the stalk with the upper part and gently push down, the cut berries will smoothly roll into the bag along the tube.

But harvesting is only half the battle for .It will be a shame if your work is in vain, and the berries can not be saved. Therefore, consider the ways in which you can save the berry for a long time.

Easy way to collect sea buckthorn:

How to properly store

The most useful benefits are berries that have not been heat treated. It is with such methods of storage that we begin.

Cut sea buckthorn branches can be preserved until spring .To do this, hang them in a cool room, the temperature of which does not rise above 0 degrees.

It is important that there was dry, excessive moisture immediately provokes rotting processes.

Freeze .Washed berries need to be expanded in plastic bags and put into the freezer. Thanks to fast freezing, the berry will retain maximum of its beneficial substances.

Sea buckthorn covered with sugar .The method also allows you to keep the fruit fresh until the spring. Take the sea buckthorn and lay it on a towel to dry. Then mix the berries with sugar and spread on sterilized jars.

The amount of sugar should be equal to the mass of berries. Store the workpiece can only be in the refrigerator. It is very convenient to use it for quick compote or fruit drink in winter.

Sea buckthorn can be stored in sugar and water, frozen or shredded

Peeled berry. Well ripened, juicy fruits are better suited for this method. Take the sea buckthorn after harvesting, rinse well and let it dry a little. Then mix with sugar in equal proportions and ceiling with a wooden pestle.

You can also use a meat grinder or blender. Spread the mixture in cans, close the capron lids and drain into the cellar, or put it in the fridge.

Sea buckthorn storage in water .Not the most famous method, however, is quite effective. Pour the fresh berries with boiled water with cooled 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).To prepare it is quite simple, for this, pass the sea buckthorn through a juicer and pour it over the cans.

Banks surely put on sterilization. Rolled juice placed in the refrigerator or basement. If desired, you can add sugar, honey, or other berries and fruits.

Although the high temperature will destroy some of the nutritional components, natural homemade sweets for tea will still be more beneficial than sweets and cookies from the store.

Nature has created for us a lot of drug products that 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 frightened 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, can stock the sea buckthorn for the whole year .