David Harrold

I grew a sea buckthorn.  I bought it for the same reason you did.  I heard about all the health benefits.  BUT, the berries are very very sour.  The closest berry I can think of for flavor comparison is mountain ash.  If you can stomach mountain ash then you might like sea buckthorn.  The other problem is the bushes are very thorny and the berries cling tight to the stems in between the thorns.  I had to actually cut the limbs off in order to harvest the berries.  I have never been so disappointed with a berry bush as I was with sea buckthorn.

Hi Daron,

I live in Pasco and have been on a few missions to find wild perennials.  Try the long ire meadow area on the little Naches River for Yampah ( Perideridea Gardineri).  It's bigger and better than the northeastern Oregon variety.  Also I have tried the wapato and they are delicious.  You should be able to find them around Olympia.  If not, head south toward the Columbia and look in the sloughs and backwater.  I have them near me on the Yakima River.  The Brodia are good tasting but small and fairly deep in the ground.  Lots of them in eastern Washington and Oregon.  Don't forget to try out lomatium couse.  It's also found in southeastern Washington and Northeastern Oregon.  I haven't tried the tiger Lilly but the Mariposa Lilly is excellent and probably larger than the tiger and also more abundant.

Drew Moffatt wrote:Well it doesn't inspire creativity as much as it gets me up off the floor sometimes.
Just a gentle reminder.
From Salt by Nayyirah Waheed.

Great post!

Sleep can be seen as a type of death so that awakening in the morning can be seen as a type of resurrection.

I made up a little ditty a few years ago that I like to think about every now and then:

Tue and Thor, Wedn and Fri
Who are they but pigs in a sty
The days have been given to fiction and fable
To see the world true we are wholly unable.

The names of the days of the week are the names of European gods (who are not gods) who correspond with the planetary deities of the ancient Greeks and Romans and are positioned according to a scheme based on the lie that the sun revolves around the earth.

I like to refer to the days of the week based on their numerical order.  Sometime when you get bored, look up the basis for the planetary week.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:

I'd love to have some of these, especially that as a true Ribes, they don't have spines. I have the red, and after a while the bush kinda dies: Too many grey stems, not many fruit. What of the taste?
So I was looking for where it could grow. and low an behold... pretty much everywhere. I just have not seen them here [Central WI.]
I'll be looking for them.
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/ribes_aureum.shtml

They will grow just about anywhere so i wouldn't be surprised if you had them near you.  You will find them in river and stream valleys.  The taste of the golden berry is similar to an orange with a sweet taste and with a hint of rose hip.  The black has more of a sweet huckleberry taste and it also has a hint of rose hip.  But every bush will have a slightly different tasting berry and i have my favourite bushes that i pick from.

Try removing the old stems from your currant bush and you may get more fruit.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:

"Hawthorne "berries" may be 'boring' but they are great for the circulatory system, and can be added to tea, herbal or otherwise, can be added to a batch of  jelly if you make jelly!  I make vinegar from fruit, and think maybe next year I will add hawthorne to the fermenting juice.

"



The native american black hawthorn has several small seeds compared to the single large seed of the european hawthorn.  This characteristic allows the black hawthorn to be juiced with an omega juicer ( a victorio strainer on steroids).  It works best to add apples to the mix as the hawthorn "juice/pulp" is very viscous and tends to jell as soon as it gets extruded due to its high pectin content.  The apple flavour is a natural compliment to the hawthorn and with a little added cinnamon, makes a very tasty pie filling.  I like to blend up the apple/hawthorn juice in a blender to break up the jell.

David

One of my all-time favourites is the Golden Currant.  They are fairly common, growing in riparian areas throughout the western states.  I like the gold and black phase colors the best (they also come in red).  The flavours vary from bush to bush so it's good to find bushes that suit your taste.  They are also seedy so it's good to use a juicer (I use an omega juicer) to juice the berries.  I first clean them by putting them into a bowl of water.  The bad berries and debris generally float and can easily be removed by tipping the bowl.  The juice makes superb jelly.  I like to use Ball freezer pectin in order to retain all the natural enzymes and nutritional benefits.  I also freeze the juice in ice cube trays to add to smoothies.  The wonerful thing about golden currants is that there are a lot of them and nobody else seems  to know they exist.  I get them all to myself.  Make sure you check yourself well for ticks after harvesting though as they ripen during prime time tick season (early to midsummer).

Hi all,

My name is Dave Harrold and I live in eastern Washington.  I have been interested in good health for a long time.  I too like elderberries to boost immune responses.  I have a few European elderberry cultivars along my fence line that I gather berries from and juice.  It's important to heat the juice though to drive off any residual cyanide.  I then add xylitol to sweeten..  But I have another remedy more powerful than any herb.  I have observed over the years that colds and flu only seem to hit during a specific season of the year and that season is what most people refer to as the holidays.  I put two and two together and deducted that there is something about celebrating the "holidays" in the Roman calendar that weakens our immune system and allows our bodies to be susceptible to viruses.  Ever since I quit celebrating the "holidays", I quit coming down with the flu.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Try it, you may find yourself being flu free.