Harvesting American Elderberries

Peak elderberry harvest is upon us in August here in the Midwest. Ripe, dark purple berries of the American black elderberry, AKA Sambucus canadensis. Whether you have some elderberries planted or access to some wild ones growing, here are a few tips to get you harvesting in abundance this year!

One thing to know is American elderberries are hand-harvested by real humans. There is current research happening to mechanize things like harvesting and processing, but we are a ways away from that becoming relevant. Especially for homesteads and small farms. In fact, we love that we get to connect with our elderberries during harvest and couldn't imagine it any other way. Elderberries don't have thorns and generally aren't located on the ground, so hand-harvesting is relatively easier than other specialty crops.

If you didn't know, you don't have to commercially grow American elderberries, they can be a great addition to your homestead's garden. A handful of elderberry plants can provide you with syrup for much of the year. In many places, American elderberries can be wild harvested from patches growing throughout the Midwest. If you're lucky enough to have access to patches like this, take advantage of them! If you are interested in how to take cuttings from wild plants, visit our Making Dormant Hardwood Elderberry Cuttings blog post. There are advantages of growing trusted selections though, they can be easily managed and are proven to flower and fruit well. Visit our Resources page on our website to learn more about the different 'named' elderberry selections.

Harvesting Supplies

To harvest elderberries, you are going to want a few tools handy when you get to the field. First will be a bucket of some type to pile your freshly harvested berry heads into while in the field. Depending on your operation, this could be a strap on a 5-gallon bucket that fits over your shoulder or a large tote on wheels.

At River Hills Harvest we walk our rows and put our harvested berry totes at the end of each row when they are full. We then circle back with a truck and pick up all the totes from the edge of the rows.

Tip: Don't use too big of totes. It's a marathon, not a race friends!

We don't use huge totes because they're hard to handle once full and if too big, can smash the berries before you even have time to destem them.

Transporting through the field: We have seen some pretty clever inventions other elderberry farmers have come up with. We've seen a cart that goes through the field that holds the totes for berries. The harvesting crew simply gets the ripe berry heads and drops them into the totes as the wagon is moving. Others utilize an ATV and just go row by row, then transport their berries to a cooler area on the ATV. At the University Of Missouri they are working on a mechanical harvester that uses a camera to gauge the ripeness of the berries. Pretty cool.

The next thing you may want is pruners. You may not need them and often the berry head can just be snapped off the plant with your hands, without damaging it. If you are having trouble with that or find using pruners is easier, go for it! Clean pruners can make a clean cut and are easier on the plant, but not necessary.

Timing

At River Hills Harvest, our elderberries are harvested, destemmed, sanitized and frozen in food-grade buckets in the same day. While the berries aren't ripe all at once, any day we have ripe berries to harvest the process is completed in full again. We've found the berries are best destemmed if we harvest early in the day and are back at the processing area by early afternoon. This gives us enough time to do all steps required in one day.

Once the berries are harvested, we store them in a cooler. Not a freezer. When they are ready to be destemmed, they have cooled off a bit and have not been sitting in the summer heat for hours beforehand. We recommend harvesting your elderberries early in the day while it's still a little cooler.

Harvesting

Identification: Berry heads need to mainly contain ripe, black to dark purple berries. Not every head will ripen evenly but choose wisely. You may choose to cover your areas once each day during harvest to ensure you're finding the ripe berries, you could also check every 3 days. This gives unripe berries a chance to ripen and lessen your searching.

Ripening: If your berry heads are not ripening evenly, you may try coppicing them to the ground in the wintertime. The new primocanes that emerge the following spring will have larger heads that ripen more evenly.

Foraging Safety: If you are wild harvesting American elderberries, be aware of your surroundings when choosing what berries to harvest. Plants growing near busy roadsides or railroad tracks will likely contain chemicals, choose more remote plants to forage from. An excellent way to track wild elderberries: they are easily identified by their large white flower heads around June. Use Google Maps to drop a pin where your patches are you want to come back to come August.

Method: Once you identify your ripe berry heads you are going to take the whole head. Harvest the whole berry head and drop it into your bucket. Don't try picking off berries from the heads in the field. Fill your bucket with ripe berry heads and take to your cooler area or park the full bucket and get another empty one. Don't let the berries in the buckets sit in the field too long and preferably store them in the shade until you can pick them all back up.

Once you've made it through your chosen area and have gathered all your berry heads, congratulations! Check out all that purple goodness you have now! You are ready to destem and wash your elderberries. While we will go more in-depth about destemming and processing in another blog post, keep reading to learn a little more...

Destemming & Processing

Before destemming your freshly harvested elderberries, you can store them in a cooler until you can get to them. We recommend not storing them for longer than a few hours. We also do not recommend freezing them with the stems on. Why? When you thaw them, you break the cell wall of the berry and will lose a lot more juice. Second, you'll find more tiny stem pieces break off and end up in your final mix. This leads to bad taste and appearance.

Destemming Gear: Perhaps you already have a TED (Terry's Elderberry Destemmer), or you utilize one of our hand-destemming trays. Our TED is designed for commercial production, and our hand-destemming tray is perfect for even hundreds of pounds of elderberries, whether for commercial or home use. Click below to learn more about them.

LEARN

Processing your elderberries will ensure they are sanitized and you've removed most of the debris and/or bugs from the mix. This will get them food-safe and ready to be frozen for later utilization. Stay tuned for future blog posts that goes more in-depth on processing American elderberries.

Learn More

In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about growing your own elderberries, you are in luck! We offer lots of resources here in our blog or visit our Resources page. You can take our FREE History of Elderberries Class that will get you set up to take our growing and marketing courses.

At River Hills Harvest, we are farmers, makers and suppliers. We offer American elderberry plants throughout the year, coming up in fall will be bare root plants. We'll also open up pre-orders for dormant hardwood cuttings soon that ship out in January and February. Be sure to subscribe to our emails to get notified when plants are available.

Until next time friends, cheers to your health!

Heather

I am Heather Wilson, of the River Hills Harvest crew. By being part of the company, I am blessed to have access to American elderberries in all forms. I enjoy experimenting with new ways to incorporate them into my diet, as well as other natural plants, berries and more. I have a background in greenhouse management as well as floral design and am involved in the art community as an artist, when time allows. I enjoy playing guitar and writing songs. I also enjoy wandering in nature with no real purpose, because a purpose always presents itself. It’s a busy life, but one that I love and feel lucky to be a part of.