A valuable garden culture - sea buckthorn, when it ripens, it turns into a real storehouse of vitamins. If you look at the composition of the berries, you can find vitamins A, C, E, PP, B, as well as iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, valuable amino acids, pectins and the “hormone of happiness” serotonin.
The cultivation of this culture is common throughout Russia. For a long time, sea buckthorn was used to make tinctures, compotes, preserves, jelly. When sea buckthorn ripens, its fruits turn bright orange, juicy, with a sweet and sour taste and pleasant aroma. Depending on the variety and the region in which the crop is grown, ripening occurs in different months. But on average, from flowering to the appearance of ripe berries, it takes from 90 to 100 days.
At the same time, fruits can be detected only on “female” plants. Like all dioecious, sea buckthorn is pollinated with the help of wind and insects. Male flowers have a huge amount of pollen, but never form ovaries. Such a tree can be recognized by larger sizes, but most often you have to wait for the fruiting period. Sea buckthorn, when it ripens, has completely berry-strewn branches, hence its unusual name comes from.
The fruits have a different color and shape. Most often, the berries are cylindrical, spherical or oblong. The weight of one berry is from 0.5 to 1 gram. In this case, the color varies from light yellow to bright red. The value of these fruits is great fresh. They are recommended for use in gastritis, various heart diseases, vitamin deficiency, impaired metabolism, and ulcers. Outwardly, oil is used on the basis of this valuable plant for the treatment of skin diseases, the rapid healing of wounds and burns.
Harvesting sea buckthorn lasts all fall. Ripe fruits begin to be harvested in August and continue in September. Varieties with a very short stalk are much more difficult to harvest.
Sea buckthorn, when ripe, becomes very soft. The berry wrinkles in the hand, while juice flows out, causing skin irritation. If we take into account that at this time the weather is getting cooler, you can imagine how difficult and unpleasant it is to pick these berries.
Therefore, it is much easier to pick off unripe fruits or grow varieties with a long stalk. You should know that unripe sea buckthorn has not yet accumulated biologically valuable substances in full. You can cope with the collection using certain techniques. That is why most gardeners wait until mid-September until the berries fully ripen. Sometimes they use fishing lines, wire in the form of a slingshot, manicure scissors, hang an inverted open umbrella on a branch and cut the fruit into it.
Sea buckthorn, when ripe, has many lateral fruit-bearing processes, they are completely covered with berries. These processes can be safely cut without damage to the tree, and at home you can safely choose berries. After harvesting, the fruits are usually not washed, as they crumple and lose some of the healthy juice. If it is necessary to clean the skin of dust, it is better to do this before picking berries - water the bush from the hose or wash the cut branches in the shower, allow to dry, and then proceed to harvest.