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Aronia Recipies

We are asked quite often, especially now that we have berries, “What do you do with them?”  

Some of our favorite things are: 

Banana Aronia Bread

1 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup Shortening

2 Eggs 

1/2 Cup Aronia Berries

2 Cups Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

4 Mashed Bananas

1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Mix ingredients together.  Bake in greased loaf pan (or make into muffins).  Bread bakes 1 hour at 325.

We even have a special “granddaughter” who won a blue ribbon with this recipie at the Warren County Fair.  

 

Oatmeal Aronia Drop Cookies

 2 Cups Oatmeal

2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Sugar

1/2 tsp. Salt

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1 Cup melted shortening

1 Cup Aronia Berries 

1 tsp Baking Soda dissolved in 4 Tbsp Milk

2 Eggs

Mix dry ingredients.  To the dry ingredients add the shortening, eggs, and soda/milk mixture.  Mix well.  Fold in berries.  Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes.

This recipe makes dark kind of ugly cookies but wow they taste extraordinary, our son loves them!

 

All Fruit Smoothie

1/4 Cup Orange Juice

1 Cup Peaches, Drained

2 Medium Bananas, in chunks

1/2 Cup Frozen Aronia Berries

Put ingredients in a blender in this order. Blend until the drink is smooth.  Delicious!

 

Also try adding to your salads, favorite smoothies, vinaigrette dressings, pancakes, marinades, BBQs, soups, lemonade, ice tea, or make a syrupy icing and use over cakes.   Be creative, there are many uses for this healthy, versatile little purple gem.

 

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Health Benefits & Research on Aronia Berries – Links

I have meant to do this for quite some time, although between watering and mowing and caring for our wonderful granddaughters, I have neglected to keep up.  So, here we go.  I am listing several websites for you to research Aronia Berries.  Several have recipies as well.  Enjoy your research, I’m sure you will find these little purple berries as beneficial and surprising as we have!

If you have questions or need additional information, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact us here.  We’d love to hear from you!

Aronia Berries the New Antioxidant Super Fruit

From Mother Earth News:  Aronia Berries

From Fox News: Aronia:  The North American Super Berry with Cancer-Fighting Properties

The Native Aronia Berry is Healthful, Sustainable and Quite Tasty

Aronia in America

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Berries, Berries, Berries

In 2012 the late spring frost diminished what we thought we might harvest.  In 2013, we have more berries and look forward to the berry production increasing every year.  We have about 5,000 plants now which have been planted over the past 3-4 years.  We currently have around 200 plants that may produce this year.   Each plant has been raised organically, as is our yard, because of my sensitivities.   We will be organic certified next season.

We are excited to share some of the photos of the plants this year and the changes from the archived photos to these current ones.  If you go back through the blog you will notice the same trees in the background, just the plants are bigger.  It is our way of scrapbooking the growth of the plants.  I’ve also included a photo of the spring-flowering bush, the flowers were in full bloom the weekend of May 17th, it was quite a sight.  We were filled with anticipation.

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Our Final Field #4

We worked all year long it seemed to get to the point last fall where we were ready to add our final three acres.  We cleared a field that had been alfalfa at one time, but you’d never know it in the last 15 years since we’ve owned it.  It was full of Cedar trees, wild roses, scrub trees, raspberry bushes, brush and grass.  But with a lot of hard work and the help of rented equipment it is now probably our best aronia berry field.

In September 2012 we planted 1,800 aronia berry bushes (Viking variety) with the help of our church’s ASP (Appalachian Service Project) volunteers.  We couldn’t have done it in half a day without their tremendous help.  We would have killed ourselves trying to do it!  We had the holes drilled with the help of a Dingo, and the planting went smoothly.  Of course, it was still the drought year so we watered and watered after planting the bushes.  We watered with two lawn tractors and tanks.  It took us eight hours watering together to get through the field.  We kept it up and kept it up until it finally rained and cooled down.  Thank goodness we have a pond nearby to draw from and the Honda pump could fill up the tanks and keep us on the move.  Talk about loving up on those little plants, when spring 2013 came, we lost fewer than a dozen!  We were thankful and amazed.  They truly are hardy plants.  Although, the soil in this field is the best on our whole property, we are expecting this field to be our best producer in the long run.

This year we have continued to water, fertilize with fish emulsion and Chickity Doo Doo mow, mow, mow and pull weeds.  We are thankful too for the electric fencing!  We didn’t have to replant hardly any and think it has really helped.  Although we do fix it a lot!  Those deer are stubborn.

Current look at Field 4
Current look at Field 4

T100_4799 100_4805 100_4869 100_4859

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What a Year!

As you can see I haven’t been very faithful blogging.  It’s because this year we’ve been so busy trying to keep up.  Early in the spring we were so excited all of our berries looked great!  Then it frosted and cut the berries we were expecting down.  We worked very hard to pull the weeds and had them all “cleaned” around them in early June.  The fields were beautiful and the competing grass was knocked down. 

We purchased a small mower to go in between the plants because doing it by hand and with the DR Power Trimmer was taking too long.  So the Toro Timecutter joined the farm.  Then the rain stopped.

It seems like forever that we’ve been watering and watering.  We’ve been using a soaker hose, sprinkler, and pulling a 65 gallon tank and watering each and every plant individually.  Day in and day out we water early in the morning and then again in the evening.  With the weather in July being second only to 1936 as the hottest ever, we’re struggling to keep them healthy.  The newest plants are the only ones that are really struggling, we will lose some.  We’ve been amazed though with all this hot dry weather the older plants are sending out new shoots and have more new growth than we could have imagined.  They are hardy if given a little time to grow.  We are just in awe that in ground that feels like concrete and has cracks 1/2″ wide can support the new growth we are seeing on these plants.  

We will be having berries to pick soon, earlier than normal, just not as many as we had hoped.  Hopefully after the trying year we’ve been through now, next year’s crop will be wonderful.

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We Have Berries!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted.  Mainly because life has been crazy.  If we’re not enjoying our beautiful granddaughter, we’re probably working in the yard or the berry fields.   Truth is there’s nothing we’d rather be doing!

We had a rough winter because after planting last fall, Woody suffered a farm injury and broke two ribs and tore his rotator cuff.  So there’s been a lot of rehabilitation going on.  Needless to say we made a few changes to the equipment and are more safety conscious.

Early in the spring we put grow tubes around the smaller berries in an effort to keep the critters from pulling them out and eating on them.  It was really a good decision for us.  Abe and Sasha chase off deer at least two or three times daily so every little bit of prevention helps.  The berries we put in last fall are coming out the tops of the grow tubes we placed around them and they look really healthy.   We did remove the grow tubes once to use a foliar spray which was the easy part.  Replacing them all after the deer had pulled out five plants, was a pain in the rear.

I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer with “my new favorite tool,”  a DR Power Trimmer.  It really is a good solution for getting in between the berries and taking the grass and weeds down low.   For me especially, the California emission motor, and 16″ wheels makes it far easier to use than either a weed eater or a small lawn mower.  It has been a real help this summer keeping weeds under control.   We have a picture of Woody using the trimmer.

We attended the Midwest Aronia Association Conference earlier this summer.  It was eye-opening seeing and talking to so many other folks interested in the same berries.  We learned even more about these healthy little berries, their history and use in Poland, and their potential.  We also dined on several delicious entrees prepared using aronia berries.

We have fertilized with fish emulsion, watered, trimmed between bushes, and loved up on the plants all summer long.  Now we are encouraged because we have berries!  Not very many yet, because it’s still a little early.  The plants take three to four years to produce a crop, but we have some producing and expect a few more next year.  Our first bushes are two and a half years old.

The few berries we have (that we haven’t already eaten) will be frozen and eaten.  From what we’re reading, 1/4 cup of berries daily is so beneficial for your health.  There are studies which point to lowering cholesterol and preventing diseases.  I’ll post more about that later, but right now, I can’t wait to show the photos!  [slideshow]

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Aronia beats Blueberry

I keep watching the berries and hoping for warmer weather!  I guess it’s Spring Fever.

As we’re watching and waiting for the weather to improve, we’re studying and looking further into the health benefits of our little purple berries.  I recently located another excellent article about these little gems.  I was amazed at this report showing blueberries having about a third the ORAC value of the aronia berries!  I knew they were high on the anti-oxidant scale, but this is just reassuring.  Oh the benefits, I can’t wait for our first crop.

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Great News Regarding Parkinsons and Berries

Great news reports lately relating the benefits of eating berries to your health.  We are thrilled and knew we were on the right path with our aronia plantation!  But the great reports about berries and Parkinson’s was awesome news.  Read the interesting reports which link consuming 2-3 cups of berries to decreased Parkinson’s risks for men and women.

So what are these aronia berries?  Dr. Eldon Everhart, the local expert explains here.

We are more and more anxious for our plants to produce a crop!

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So What Are They?

One question we continually get asked when we tell people we’ve planted aronia berries is – what are they? It’s true, they’re not very common, yet. You don’t see them on the store shelves but once you do your homework, you’ll see why we’ve been interested.

They are very high anti-oxidant berries. Hardy little plants that grow to maturity and are relatively low maintenance. They are not terribly time sensitive when it comes to harvest time, unlike grapes. They are raised organically, which is extremely important to us with all my sensitivities. They are native to cold areas and will thrive in challenging soils. Boy, are we a testament to that.

This link provides more information on the berries: http://www.aroniaberry.org/

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Rain Finally!

After a summer marked with rain, where it seemed to occur every other day, once we planted aronia berries the moisture stopped.    Yes this year that through September had been one of the top five wettest on record, turned dry after October 9th, planting day.   Today we’re finally getting a much needed soaking from Mother Nature.

The plants are doing well for the most part.  Although I’m sure the water I’ve been applying via the tank and pump system behind the lawn tractor isn’t nearly as good as the real thing.  We have managed to keep them healthy by our at least weekly waterings.  It may not seem like a big deal, but when we first started watering it was an eight-hour chore to get around.  Now we’ve fine tuned the operation and it doesn’t take quite that long.  It’s just a tedius, time-consuming task that is best left to Mother Nature.

So we’re celebrating the rain today in central Iowa and enjoying the long-range forecast which includes rain next week too!