Green fingered help

[Astro]

Whilst trawling the internet for recipes...

"It's really important only to pick ripe (purple-black) elderberries. You can tell they're ripe because the fruits will be hanging downwards and plump, rather than being above the branch and hard.

Avoid green and green-purple berries as these are unripe and contain traces of cyanide, which can cause vomiting and diarrhoea... In some sensitive people, even ripe fruit will do this. However, cooking removes this problem."

My memory is reliable!

mentioned this on FB.

Elderberry wine is one of the strongest wines, a winner with little old ladies who enter one of their bottles in the local fete.

[HelenB]

Just rediscovered this website whilst hunting for the raspberry vodka recipe I used a couple of years back (which was )

Might be useful to forum hedgerow foragers

[Magic Hans]

Just be aware of it's growth rate.

It is really quite easy to control, which is a good job, because it does grow, really quite quickly, and big (up to 49 foot according to wiki)

It is resilient enough to grow in some very inhospitable places .... like in amongst conifers like Leyland Cypress (Leylandii), and it's acidic leaf (needle) litter. Often found in hedges.

[Gav]

Just be aware of it's growth rate.

It is really quite easy to control, which is a good job, because it does grow, really quite quickly, and big (up to 49 foot according to wiki)

It is resilient enough to grow in some very inhospitable places .... like in amongst conifers like Leyland Cypress (Leylandii), and it's acidic leaf (needle) litter. Often found in hedges.

That explains why I've never noticed its fruit before this year and it's about 8 feet tall already!