Tyrni (sea-buckthorn)

[Rosamunda]

Anyone ever grown these berries....?



I planted half a dozen bushes about 4 or 5 years ago and every year the magpies have scoffed all the berries. So, this year I rigged up some nets and a few scary things around them and hey! I have masses of bright orange tyrni berries!!!

1) How do I know if they are ripe? They taste pretty awful raw anyway, so I find it hard to tell if they are ready to pick or not.

2) How do I pick them? This problem never occured to me until last week... but looking at those branches (some are 2-3 metres off the ground), the thorns, the way the berries are packed in tight on the branches... it looks like an almost impossible task. Wikipedia suggests cutting off the branches seems a bit drastic though.

3) What do I do with them? Juice? Jam? Dump them in the freezer? Tips?

Thanks.
P

[Jukka Aho]

Anyone ever grown these berries....? [...]

3) What do I do with them? Juice? Jam? Dump them in the freezer? Tips?

You could try this one (click on the image for a recipe):



It’s pretty yummy. (I’m not much of a confectioner myself but my sis makes those every now and then.)

[sammy]

2) How do I pick them? This problem never occured to me until last week... but looking at those branches (some are 2-3 metres off the ground), the thorns, the way the berries are packed in tight on the branches... it looks like an almost impossible task. Wikipedia suggests cutting off the branches seems a bit drastic though.

Did you find this already?

http://www.marjamaa.fi/index.php?id=10&la=en

It seems that if you wish to pick the berries, there's no real shortcuts... interestingly enough, the Finnish version of the page mentions that in Sweden, one method is to cut off and freeze the branches, with berries and all, and then -when frozen solid- they can be more easily separated from the branches by (btw what is puida in English... thrash? Goes to show doesn't it... ) well, thrashing them about However, apparently this only works with a certain variety of sea buckthorn.

An optional method is to use child labour - get them to rescue Sleeping Beauty (aka the berries) from behind the Fence of Thorns (aka the fence of thorns) of the Evil Witch (call him Buck Thorne)...

[Rosamunda]

Thrashing is shaking something violently from side to side (and also means smacking as in punishment)
Threshing is hitting crops with a stick (or mechanical sthg) to remove the seeds.

I don't think I have enough room in my freezer for the whole branches. Though I guess they only need to be frozen for a few hours, so I could plug in one of the big ice-cream freezers for a couple of days

As for child labour.... my kids are in the "what's the rate per hour?" age category so I would have to negotiate. Shame because I quite like the idea of dressing them up into medieval knights with swords and armour... I guess they grew up too quickly

What about the ripeness.... how do I know if they are ready to pick? They taste horrible, but then maybe they taste horrible even when they are ripe

Thks for the link.

[sinikala]

I could have sworn this was already discussed on here? Seems not.

MIL has a few of them, I'm not sure if she does anything with them; they are very soft when ripe, therefore hard to pick. Commercially they are harvested by juicing / pressing whilst still on the bush (I understood this was without cutting the branches off).

Section 7 of the link Sammy says the same. http://www.marjamaa.fi/index.php?id=10&la=en#7.

Only form of the juice I've had which is even passable was in a cocktail.

http://pilkelehti.fi/2008/07/cocktail-s ... yrni-sour/

[sammy]

Thrashing is shaking something violently from side to side (and also means smacking as in punishment)
Threshing is hitting crops with a stick (or mechanical sthg) to remove the seeds.

Ah yes, the word I was looking for, thanks. It was with e and not with a, in this context.

Sorry, I have no real experience of the said berries myself - I've tasted some products made of them, but have never picked or tasted them 'whole' so I dunno... the juice I've tried a few times, IIRC it's supposed to be good for health... not bad, but maybe what might be called 'an acquired taste'.

[Rosamunda]

Not sure I can figure out how to juice them on the tree. The wikipedia site mentioned a (bespoke) Estonian contraption... but I've never seen one in the gardening stores. I guess I could try with the blueberry combs??? Two of the bushes are quite small (ie feet on the ground) so I could try picking those by hand (with gloves). Just enough to make a couple of litres so I can experiment with some jam or juices. Not worth going up a ladder for (I don't climb ladders any more anyway). I agree it is an acquired taste, but I used to hate cloudberries too and now I find them quite OK. If all else fails, I'll remove the nets and the CDs and let the birds have them!

[sammy]

I'll remove the nets and the CDs and let the birds have them!

As a sidenote, which artist's CDs did you use?

[Rosamunda]

Mostly Elisa... not sure what they were (installation CDs of some kind?)

[Desundial]

So how did that experiment end up? Did you get them off the tree? Make anything good? We saw a lot of those bushes this summer when we were traveling, so I'd be curious if it was worth the effort.

[vend638]

hello, does anybody know, who buys tyrni (sea-buckthorn) in Finland? I have appr. 8-10t in Estonia, Saaremaa. Price is 4 eur/kg. Contact: priit@jomanda.ee