This morning the last of the german variety sirola was cut at Devereux farm. They came ripe at the end of July and have been harvested since August 2nd. I was expecting them to be harvested in July but every season is different, and I believe that in Scandinavia their harvest is going to be late due to a cold summer. The plants have yielded well and have large berries mainly towards the top of the plant, with smaller fruit hidden in the middle and bottom of the plant.
The whole family have tried hand picking but that resulted in a long winded process of less than a kilo in an hour. We then tried the wire scrapers – just on the mid section of branches in order to reduce leaf contamination in the berries. The result was a messy pile of part broken berry mixed with a lot of juice. On freezing this forms a solid lump. I bought some thick polythene bags for storage this year but even these became brittle in the freezing process. They were pierced by the edges of the frozen lumps of berries when I tried to break them up to have bags of free flowing berries.
Last year we picked and scraped our berries. This year is the first attempt at cut and freeze. As a small farm unit the object is to find affordable low cost equipment. I had been told to find freezing capacity that could go to -30 deg C. This is a commercial capability and the estimate I have had to install the right “Rolls Royce” facility would be £14,500.
With only a small crop this year, spending this amount is not justified so I have some domestic freezers. The result is practical on a small scale, but there are some issues.
With experience from picking last year of ending up with a lot of leaf in the fruit, I am cutting branches about 30cm long and then trimming the leaf off the stem. In order to keep them in good condition, they are then put into an insulated box containing 4 large freezer packs. The trimmed branchlets are then about 15cm long. These are then put into a deep vegetable storage box with a mesh floor. These will stack within the freezer.
When cutting I am looking to only take half the berries choosing to cut branches that reduce the height and girth of the bush. Taking out the top also reveals small clumps and clusters of berries on short branches with little or no leaf. These come off as well. The process keeps the berries in good condition and allows the removal of unripe, damaged or over ripe berries as well as dead leaf or other unwanted trash. The end result leaves a lot of berries, but those are on branches which will form next years crop and the cutting process will ignite new growth from the centre of the bush for future harvests.
The freezing process allows berries to be knocked off the branches easily. But as speed is the issue in order to make harvesting viable, the small clumps and clusters of berries tend to fall straight into the collecting bin when the berries are being removed from branches. So I am now splitting the field collection box into two so the small branches go into a separate section and can be frozen away from the larger branches. These small clumps will be de-berried in a separation box with a finer mesh to hold onto the smaller stems of wood.
Anyone who farms sea buckthorn commercially will think this in-efficient and long winded, but the learning curve is important and until this crop earns me sufficient return to buy into harvesting/processing machinery – this is the way it has to be done.
It is actually progress and there will be clean bags of berries at the end of the harvest.