The anticipation for picking berries grows daily. As this is our first crop of a fruit that I last tasted in 2009 the issue of deciding precisely when our sea buckthorn berries will be ripe is teasing. We now have a whole month of Brix and berry dimension measurements.
As with all crops, breeders declare the optimum yields and quality values of their varieties. On this basis our Siberian sea buckthorn berries will have a berry weight varying from around 0.65g to over 1 gram. A weight of one gram might sound small but in a fruit that has small berries this could be a giant. This of course sets aspirations which might be misplaced. I have to remind myself that the plants have come to an alien soil and climate. They might – or might not achieve their genetic potential.
Every Thursday berries are weighed and measured and results are showing steady progress. The objective of this is to indicate the varieties that are ripening soonest. At the beginning of June it looked as if Augustina; Etna; Elizaveta; Chuiskaya led the pack, with Inya;Klaudia;Altaiskaya and Sudarushka offering those that are going to push harvest through into September.
This week the order is hardening up with Etna way out front. The issue though is that the berries are quite small currently at 0.5gm, with some indicating they should go larger. The brix however is racing ahead, having increased 2.0 in a week to 12.5. The largest berry at the moment comes from variety Elizaveta and is 0.75gm. These have a much lower brix so I suspect will not be ready for picking for a month.
Taste is another experience. These will not be the intense sharpness of classic foraged or European sea buckthorn. It has the same intense burst, but is definately unique. It has an apple tingle to it and is less citrus. I suppose this is why these berries are called the “Siberian pineapple”.
Taste is king as a food item, but sea buckthorn has its health atttributes. Nutrient quality matures as fruit ripens. It is influenced by the nutrients in the soil, the weather, hours of sunlight, temperature and rain. Again growing Siberian sea buckthorn in the UK will have its own unique outcome, but looking at other research papers, some research shows key nutrients change in different ways through the ripening process.
The maximum oil content in the fruit and seed develops right through the ripening process. Other nutrients are different. Sea buckthorn contains 24 different minerals including iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium, silicon, boron and others. Calcium levels are expected to be highest before the berry becomes fully ripe. Magnesium builds through the whole process. Vitamin C follows the Calcium. This is to be expected as vitamin C – ascorbic acid is after all an acid with a sharp taste. As our berries ripen with the sharpness is mellowing this indicates a slight fall in vitamin C when the berry is fully ripe. As I have said many times – we should not however be concentrating on single nutrients. It is the total nutrient package that gives health benefit. It is the total nutrient package that matters and the way each nutrient synergises with others to combine that delivers the health benefits we look for.
I am taking sea buckthorn oil capsules, three times a day because I firmly believe that they provide the stamina I need to manage the site. Every day needs strimming, mowing otherwise the weeds will rampantly take over and having reached by 60th birthday some time ago I see as stamina is an essential. Each month the plants need spraying with foliar feeds – over 1000 plants in a day.
As harvest approaches there are a million new things to think about. picking will start on Monday with Etna but this will be to start to learning curve. First issue – how long will they last in the fridge; will they ripen in the fridge and at what rate? Developing the best picking method. Designing the best picking tray. Understanding the difference between fully ripe and ripening berries. Creating a specification so that customers are sold a punnet with berries offering best taste, similar size and uniform colour.
One job that has become a morning and evening routine issue this summer has been looking after sea buckthorn plants in pots. These are kept as replacments for plants that die through the year. As these plants get bigger they really do not like the restriction of being in a pot. Leaves yellow with depressing frequency. Alongside the sea buckthorn there are edible honeysuckle plants. These have tended to brown and show their dislike of being in pots. Now I think I have cured with a simple solution.
In the garden we are told some plants favour being watered with rainwater, not tap water. This is fine except in a very dry year when there is little rain. I have started to use water from my compost tea brewer to water my potted plants and that seems to have made a radical difference. The brewer aerates tap water, allowing chemicals like chlorine that are put into the water. The honeysuckle particularly has responded really well, so although pot watering is tedious every day, it is at least rewarding with healthy looking plants.
The other innovation this week might not look professional but is part of looking to produce sea buckthorn with a low carbon footprint.
Compost tea spraying has moved forward from a backpack sprayer to a sprayer trailed behind the Westwood mower. As a petrol machine it uses a surprising amount of fuel as it idles which spraying the orchard of 4000 plants. All the tractor does is tow the sprayer and provide the battery power to run its pump.
The builder who is creating our processing building watched this process and offered the use of an old electric mobility scooter he had in his store. The result might look novel, but it has cut out another use of fossil fuel. It does not use fuel when idling beside the plant being sprayed. It also is completely quiet and allows the operator to get off and spray it difficult parts that was not possible with the old tractor.
This might sound an eccentric choice, but minimising energy and use of resources is an objective that will be on-going as we develop the crop of sea buckthorn at Devereux farm.
