Tag Archives: Aronia Berries

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Pruning, Cussing, and Praising

Pruning, Cussing, and Praising

Odd title?  You wouldn’t think so if you joined us the last few weeks in the field.  You see after the 17-year Cicada damage we suffered in June 2014, you’d understand.  Pruning is best done in December-March so the cuts can callous and harden off.  On some of the warmer days we have been out cutting back bushes. It’s a cold, snowy field and the footing is a little slippery.  Secondly, you have to bend down and inspect each branch and remember we have nearly 5,000 bushes, so it seems like it takes forever.  We’re still not done, but we’ll get there a little at a time as the backs can handle it.

I say cussing because It makes you physically feel sick to cut off so much of some of the plants and know how you are cutting down on your yield for the upcoming year.   You have that to deal with emotionally.  I keep telling myself those damned Cicadas layed the eggs in the little branches and weakened the bushes now to the point that they will not support the weight of all the berries they will be having now and in the future.  If the damage isn’t cut out now, they will suffer later.  So I cut and cuss.

At the same time, I praise the quiet time alone in the woods and in the field.   I am so thankful we are where we are and we have a hardy bush that will survive, thrive and be so strong and large in 17 years, the next Cicadas will not be able to damage them this way ever again.  Thus, the life of a farmer.

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What a Summer!

We had such high hopes for our crop this year and were so excited for the changes we were making to our farm.  Yet another lesson in patience.

We ordered our Weed Badger in early April and hoped to be ready to till around the plants in May.  I should never have trusted and sold the little riding mower that went between the small plants.  The weed badger showed up last week!  But it is going to be awesome.  We need some practice with it, but it will do the job, we’re just set back a year.

On June 17th while mowing we noticed all kinds of damaged to the berry bushes.  We couldn’t decide if the heavy winds the night before had damaged our plants or just what had happened.  Turns out it was the 17-year cicada emergence.  They really did a number on us.  The females bury their eggs into the small stems of plants.  Well our place is very wooded and was 17 years ago too, so we had a terrible infestation.  It was like walking on crunchy shells everywhere in our fields.  Turns out they were a problem.  We had lots of branches die and many more erupted and weakened so they did not support all the berry production.  Our crop suffered dramatically and probably will next year too.  We’re thankful it’s only every 17 years!

Cicada Damaged Bush
Cicada Damaged Bush
Cicada Damaged Branch
Cicada Damaged Branch

June 16th our Horizon Building arrived after a LOT of dirt work that was done, thanks to our son.   The wonderful Amish crew had the building up in a week, mostly.  It rained and rained all summer and the inside was muddy, our granddaughter loved mud stomping inside!  The floor was finally poured (in the rain) August 27th.  But we have a place to put all the equipment for winter storage and it’s wonderful.

Mudstomping Inside the Building
Mudstomping Inside the Building

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Through all the rain, weeds, and cicada damage, we’ve been so impressed at how hardy these plants are.  Plants we put in the ground two years ago have really thrived despite the conditions they had to deal with this year.  That field was neglected this summer with all the rain and the lack of a good way to mow between the plants and the cicada damage as well, but they look really good.

We keep believing the plants will be able to produce a nice crop for us.  We have had friends with excellent yields.  Meanwhile, we keep finding new ways to enjoy them.

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Chocolate Chip Aronia Berry Cookies

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 2 cups sugar (1 brown and 1 white works too)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 Tbsp. vanilla
  • 5 cups flour (I usually use 2 c whole wheat and 3 unbleached white)
  • 1 Tbsp baking soda
  • 1 cup aronia berries
  • 1 cup chocolate chips

Mix butter, shortening and sugars.  Add eggs, vanilla and soda.  Mix in the flour.  Add the berries and chocolate chips.  Berries may be fresh or frozen and will tend to turn the cookies a swirly purple when mixed.   Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

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We’re Not Dead Yet

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We're Not Dead Yet

Woody’s motto has always been if you’re not changing, you’re dying. So this is evidence we’re still kicking! This long winter has been preparation for organic certification, tractor and weed badger purchasing, and storage building preparation. You are looking at the future site of our new Horizon building. We had to move over 400 landscape blocks in preparation for the dirt work to begin and get some professional help to determine just where to place the building, but we’re nearly ready.

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A New Deere in the Field

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A New Deere in the Field

After 31 years with the same John Deere, Woody has said hello to a new Deere to graze in the fields. Abe will not be chasing this one away. It is necessary to do the work the old Deere, the Ex-Mark and Woody and I have been doing by hand. Thanks to Kendall, we’ll be outfitting it to weed the berries! We’re so excited. It has already made loading things around here so much easier!

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Blooms Equal Berries!

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Blooms Equal Berries!

May 10, 2014 – We have Blooms! In fact in field two we were out mowing and for the first time we could smell the future. The bushes were loaded with blooms there Woody and I could smell the sweet fragrance of aronia for the first time. It was an unexpected pleasure! We have quite a few blooms even in fields three and even four. The nights of frost worried us a bit, but hopefully it wasn’t cold enough to damage any berry production. Time will tell…

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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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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

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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.