We are officially into the dog days of summer; with daylight noticeably shorter than around the June solstice, berry season is sadly coming to an end. However, there is one local berry that is putting on a show right now. Besides its fruit, elderberry has many other contributions to the landscape that we can be thankful for.
At the Refuge Food Forest, elderberry is one of several woody, perennial berry crops that sequesters carbon, provides shelter for birds, and also provides an amazing abundance of nectar for pollinators in the spring. Next year around late May, head over to the Refuge Food Forest in Normal to see a stunning array of honeybees, bumblebees, ground bees, beetles, birds, flies and more which will be covering the umbel-shaped white flower clusters of the elderberry. These are impossible to miss; take time next spring and go admire (and maybe smell) the flowers.
Speaking of elderflowers, Europeans – who brought the European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) over to the U.S. – make elderflower teas, liqueurs and candies out of a few elderflower clusters each year. Generally, established European and American elderberry can have several large clusters up to several dozen clusters of flowers grow every late spring which will eventually set fruit in late summer. Elderflower harvest causes no damage to the plant and allows passersby to try their hand at crafting some of these delicacies.
The elderberry is steeped in folklore and mystery. Some people will not use this plant because due to its toxicity. Indeed, the leaves, roots, stems, and any other part of the plant besides the flowers are mildly poisonous. So then, what is the big deal about elderberry fruit, if it's poisonous?
Indeed, raw elderberries themselves should NOT be consumed; they have compounds in them called cyanogenic glycosides that can make you sick, uncooked. However, if the berries are separated from the umbel (the complex berry stem that holds the fruits) and cooked for a period of time in water, honey and spices, one can make a nutritious elderberry syrup!
Elderberry has 10 grams of fiber per 100 calories of fruit, making it one of the best supplies of fiber in the world of fruit! It’s also extremely high in beneficial antioxidants. In the past, this syrup has been prized for its use in alleviating symptoms of the common cold and other immune system-supportive uses.
For those not interested in rolling the dice with elderflower or even cooked berry ingestion. Consider this though: the elderberry can grow to a height of 10-20’ tall, and turns bushy, expanding out new shoots from the base annually. This makes it an excellent landscaping plant to use as a privacy screen, if planting along your fencerows or property lines. Within two or three years, you’ll have a wall of elderberry bushes if planted every 6’ or so.
Oregon State University Extension has a great resource on preserving and using elderberry in a variety of ways and can be found with the internet search, "Play it safe when preserving elderberries".
New research findings show American elderberry juice may help mental functioning in older adults, according to Missouri Center for Agroforestry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nick Frillman is a Local Foods and Small Farms Educator serving Livingston, McLean & Woodford counties. A fourth-generation graduate from University of Illinois, Frillman has a B.A. with a double major of Political Science and Spanish and a M.S. in Crop Science with a focus on crop production. Before joining Illinois Extension, Frillman completed a field season of CSA and farmers’ market style production at a small “beyond-organic” vegetable farm in Sandy, Ore.