looduskalender.ee

When I was young I did. There is a bird refuge in an old army training ground a few miles from here. Because it was an army base it has roads and I could ride my bike with big baskets and tubs from one black berry patch to the next. (And when I was really little I sold some Black Berry Jam to the governor -- made from blackberries in our alley.) Now I think the bushes are mostly cut down in the refuge -- native animals do not make use of them. Blackberries are a terrible weed here. They could totally overrun my back yard in two years -- maybe even in one. Someone brought my parents a bowl of black berries they picked somewhere this year so definitely people do still pick them.

I am cutting back my hedge but decided to wait on one section until the berries growing in it are harvest-able. I ate one, it looked black but it was sour! In a week or so I will have enough berries for some kind of treat.

As to the eagles I was thinking duck hunting would make it harder for eagles to hunt ducks as people would be out bothering the ducks.

Returning to the blackberries:
In 1835 the body of an Iron age woman was found in Denmark, remarkably well preserved (not comparable to Ötzi, of course). She has been called the Haraldskaer Woman, and her last meal consisted of blackberries. She was buried, possibly sacrificed, around 500 BC, quite a bit later than the famous Danish Bronze Age burial finds.
(If you look her up on Internet, you might not like to look at the pictures in detail; all "bog bodies" are somewhat scary).
"Sunripe blackberries" some sources say, to add a bit of extra presence. Doubtful if the difference between "sunripe", and just blackberries shows after 2500 years, in spite of the miracles of electron spin and magnetic investigations ...

I saw this on the front bush.
http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8111

Saturday I put these berries in the photo, it seems, the leaf is different, and called
Viburnum opulus.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viburnum_opulus

Beautiful photo and beautiful cluster of berries, Fleur!
Many of us never get to see them so in Sweden; a beastly beetle (Viburnum leaf beetle) and its larvae eat the bushes bare of leaves every year.
After the LK article about the guelder rose last autumn saying that the berries are actually edible and quite nice after frost I found some at last and tried. "European cranberry bush"? Hmm.

About the red-berried elder and the proper (black) elder, Sambucus niger:
Berries of the black elder poisonous - UK (elderberry wine) and Danish (hyldebaersaft) members ?
Black elder used to be planted at cottages in south Sweden (Skåne), as protection against evil spirits, and for its flowers (dried used as tea against fevers) and the berries. A very nice drink can be made with sirop ("saft") from fresh flowers and diluted with white wine and ice. Or champagne ...

Dear Liis,
it's new to me that the fruit of Sambucus niger (in German "Schwarzer Holunder", "Hollerbusch" or "Fliederbeerbusch") should be poisonous. They are eaten as fruit, are used for medicin (child's cold), even the flowers are eaten after dipping into fluid pastry and baked in hot oil. I specially like yoghurt with either the berries or the fresh flowers, mhhhh.

Dear Leonia and all other friends of elderberries /flowers -
there is a very similar elder, Sambucus ebulus, the dwarf elder, that almost all agree is poisonous, also with black berries. Not so very dwarf, the one I saw last week was at least 2 metres, flowering now. But it is a herb, not a bush.
Some people may be allergic to the "real" elder, and it is said that the unripe berries are not good for you: there were recipes for pickling them as capers.
In yoghurt - interesting! They often flower again with a few sprays in autumn, a chance to try then. A Czech friend used to strew the fresh flowers on pancakes before turning them in the pan.
The true black elder is slowly but surely spreading northwards in Sweden. Some twenty years ago there were few in Stockholm, now they are everywhere. And they have had no problems at all with cold winters. So it has been one of my unsolved riddles - why not in Estonia?
As usual (nearly) - not in America. The red-berried elder is much more widely spread (MAP)

I notice that I know nothing about these berries.
I will not go picking them. Only if they are processed for juice or jam, and in the shop for sale.

I have used cranberry juice, which is good for the bladder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry
( in the Netherlands are grown on Terschelling. )


I saw also this, but I don't know the name.
Who knows?

Hi, Fleur, Sambucus niger, the black-berried elder or just elder, but it has a bit to go before the berries are ripe. The colours are beautiful then, berries black and glossy with a hint of purple, and the stalks dark red-purple; the sprays are beautifully constructed too, a little like water cascades coming down. The leaves here look a little sad, though - or, sorry, maybe it is one of the expensive variegated-leaf garden cultivars.

So if they are ripe, I can just eat, you think?
thank you for the info Liis.

So if they are ripe, I can just eat, you think?
------------.[/quote]
I (and lots of others ) think you can. Maybe try a handful first: you might be allergic, and you might not like the taste; it is a little special, likewise the smell. They are nicer cooked, I think: jam or marmalade or "Saft" ("mahl", "sirop", fruit or berry juice cooked with sugar: a rather Nordic phenomenon in the kitchen, I have discovered; with elderberries, a Danish speciality )
PS. A few sprays of flowers in a bottle of wine vinegar make an interesting salad dressing.

I will try, but will cook them first, as they are ripe.
And one branch in a bottle of vinegar is a good tip .
And it will also be a pretty sight, I think

PS. It is. Only shake out the tiny insects and creepies first that like the flowers too. Nothing nasty, just like specks of dust. Probably the white colour and the richness of pollen attracts them.

Bat study here in Alsace for the next four evenings too,part of a European study I think.
Wonder how the bad weather (forecast by the weather people) will affect the bats

It will be like last year's bat night here: cold and wet and hardly any bat outside. But since we see them in the early morning or in the late evening rushing outside the kitchen window, it does no longer bother us.

yep ! We see them,or rather just one from the back door,likewise at dusk early morning, I am er, ..
Why do they bother you ?

Sorry, Camel, that was no good explanation I gave:
last years cold and wet bat night without hardly any bat bothered us, but this year we stay at home, stay dry and look at those at the kitchen window.

Yes,thats my way too. Look out the door/window....my way. I saw ONE bat several times but was it the same bat every time.
I wouldn't be much good at bat-counts.

I saw a bat doing loops in the sky this evening. It has been such a cool summer I have seen hardly any this year.

Like some of you say.
I go at night unable to get out to watch.
But here in the summer flew every night four bats around the house.
( Eptesicus serotinus )