(Hippophae rhamnoides) Sea Buckthorn is a thorny upright shrub that grows to 6’ to 10’ tall. The female is loaded with nutritious, medicinal orange berries. Plant a female producer and a male for pollination.
(Eleagnus multiflora) Goumi is a beautiful 5’ tall and wide bush loaded with tasty one inch oval red fruits great for sauces and jelly, ripe in late July. It’s self fertile and a nitrogen fixer.
Sea Buckthorn
Freezing helps to reduce the astringency of the fruit. Picking the berries is difficult due to the many sharp thorns among the berries. To avoid this problem, whole branches may be pruned off and frozen in the freezer overnight, after which the berries can easily be shaken off. Do this branch thinning judiciously so as to not lower production in future years. Prune to train branches, promote growth and open the plant to allow light into the center and to make picking the berries easier. Remove overlapping branches, and long branches should be cut to encourage development of lateral shoots. Thorns may also be pruned off the branches. Bushes are upright and can grow up to ten feet tall and need at least 10 feet of spacing. The male, needed only for pollination, can be pruned back to minimize its size.
(Hippophae rhamnoides) (Location W 2, K 6) Sea Buckthorn is also called Seaberry. The female bushes are so loaded with fruit, that the bush is bright orange when the fruit is ripe. One male plant will pollinize up to nine females. These vigorous upright growers should be spaced at least ten feet apart. They grow well in our area with well drained soil and full sunlight. There are many good varieties available with German varieties being generally a little sweeter than Russian varieties.
The juice is often mixed with sweeter juice from other plants. The berries are high in vitamin E and K, in addition to carotene, flavonoids, minerals and vitamin C. The bright orange juice is highly prized in eastern Europe for its flavor and its extraordinary health benefits. Leaves for high vitamin C tea should be picked from the male plants so as not to reduce leaf area on the female plants.
Goumi
(Elaeagnus multiflora) (Location W2, K7) The Goumi (pronounced goo-me) is a great edible multi-branched shrub perfect for a small garden. It grows to only about five feet tall and wide. In late July and early August it is loaded with oval shaped sweet/tart flavorful fruit. When the fruit becomes orange/red and starts to soften, it is ready to pick. Each one inch oval fruit has an oval shaped pit. The Goumi is self fertile and tolerates a wide range of soils. It is a nitrogen fixer with attractive green leaves with silvery undersides. One plant produces thousands of fruit good for eating out of hand or made into sauces, pies or jellies. High in Vitamin A and C, it starts producing two years after planting. Goumi is native to Japan, China and Korea. We have the variety “Sweet Scarlet”.
