These Aronia berries are great dried , and sweet
I just did it laid out in the air in a wire strainer
, and after stored in a paper bag
Just ate one a few hours ago
I heard they make the best pie , but do not have any fresh ones
I think the tannins would bind well with the fat in milk (like coffee) or coconut milk
and I think would blend well with milk Chocolate.
(I’d use for WIne, as is but I wouldn’t add egg white ,
but just to say that binds to tannin, and drops it out in winemaking (also to clear cloudy wine)
just saying maybe that would help for juice processing but think fat binding to tannin is a better idea .)
Oh here is a juice (this web site below talks more about it)
I was surprised About a half grocery bag full in a metal (wire ) strainer
berries touching, and they did not rot.
Should take a couple months to dry ,
but taste a long there are different stages in flavor. you may not like it
I could mail some maybe just 20 if you’d like to try
(NOTE if you dry marble sized crab apple by air they become sweet
oven dried fast they remain sour) –
(In winemaking you learn how the acids change while they sit on grape vine (edit veraison )
or Malic a acidic acid (think Granny smith) changes to a mellower tartaric acid in grape but still acidic.
(EDIT a little misleading, but only using that as a example acids change in fruit when aged
, but I’m not a expert only what I’ve noticed. )
Other brands in bigger jugs are in plastic quart bottles
I would not store the juice in plastic at least in long run
(I do drink Orange juice in plastic but something like pure cranberry has more acid in it.)!
ALSO the bitter berries soaked in Alcohol should make a nice drink or use for smoothie.
I think it depends some on the variety. I got some aronia from someone not long ago that were downright nasty tasting and I had to throw them away, but ive also harvest some mckenzie aronia that were pretty good. I like them juiced in a drink with diet coke with a bit of vodka or gin.
TheDerek, I have never grown aronia (or any plants) before. I am about to do so. I live in Adelaide (very dry and hot summers, and warm winters). Could you please guide me step by step what I should do based on your experience and knowledge to help maximise success and fruiting? I’ve got about 70 seeds on order. Also, could you give me an idea of what % of seeds actually succeed in sprouting? Would greatly appreciate it!
IF you want to Grow Aronia it could be better to get the sterile Aronia Since bringing to Australia you never know if it could be Invasive you wouldn’t want it to cover your entire yard if it did, and be a never ending battle , but maybe it wont do that.
If it did I’d destroy them ,
Red chock Cherry or Aronia arbutifolia is more adapted to the dry parts of America like Texas, for Instance , but also wet boggy area’s as well
I harvest around 100 or so volunteer seedlings from under my Vikings which has sprouted from dropped fruit last year, Easy to spot in the spring with their reddish leaves
i don’t know much about growing aronia in that climate, which is very different than mine. do some research into fruits people are having success with in your area, maybe go to a local garden center and see what advice they give…
GRIN has a nice variety of aronia, some with brix levels of 17 to 21. I received some seeds a few years ago (only one plant survived due to lack of water) but no luck this year.
I’m quite desperate to grow aronia though. I’ve heard of people in the middle of Africa growing apple trees, so surely there is some possibility of it working.
Could you please tell me the brand and product name of the best soil and fertiliser you used after the seeds sprouted, and how much fertiliser to use and how often? This would be a big help for me…
Alan, you’ll probably want to start with some coconut coir bricks. soak in water and then flush extra water through to remove salinity. Get the excess moisture out so that it is damp. Then heat in a microwave or sterilize using 50/50 peroxide (diluted) and water solution. Osmocote is the slow release fertilize you’ll probably want to use. Good luck and welcome to the forum!
Hi disc4tw, thanks very much for the tip! Regarding “Osmocote”, there seems to be quite a lot of different fertilizers available at my local garden shop. Could you please point me to the best one for initially growing the seedling, and which one would be best a few years later for fruiting? I read that apple trees like to start off with nitrogen, and later when you want them to fruit to switch to potassium and phosphorous.
Use something low strength until plants are in larger amounts of soil. I usually see half-strength mentioned, or fish emulsion, once true leaves emerge. Check labels, something like 4-4-4 or 2-4-1.
FYI -Osmocote everywhere is the same- a licensed product or made in the same place. Wait for this until your plants are growing very well, it’s stronger.
Just one question, after the wet paper-towel stratification for 6 weeks in the refrigerator, when I put the stratified seeds into the coir, should the pot/tray be closed with a lid (with a few holes to breathe), or should it be completely open? And is it better to place the pot/tray in the shade, or the sun?
I will probably seed the coir in winter as it should be just the right temperature considering that spring is probably too hot for seedlings in Adelaide. The average winter temperature in Adelaide is about 16C/61F during the day, and 8C/46F during the night.
Growing plants indoors can be tricky, I wouldnt sprout all your seeds at once if they are expensive or hard to get because your chances of failure are high until you get used to it. A lot depends on environment, temp/humidity and light. Id suggest trying to grow in a tent or some kind of enclosure so you can keep the temp/humidity a little higher than regular room temperatures. For LED light ive had good luck keeping my temps at about 85f and humidity in the 50-70% range. You can do this with exhaust fans and a thermostat. As far as nutrients go Ive had good luck with General Hydroponics Flora Nova series, https://generalhydroponics.com/products/floranova/ but I also use Megacrop which is significantly cheaper, MEGA CROP – Greenleaf Nutrients . If you are growing under LED youll want to watch for deficiencies as magnesium and calcium are fairly common, especially if you dont keep temperatures high enough. What ive had good luck doing is starting in coir with some osmocote + included, usually I use around 3 grams / liter of substrate. Your plants wont benefit much from the OC until they start to develop significant root systems, until then you will still need to fertilize them. The amount to fertilize depends greatly based upon your environment. The more perfect the environment, meaning temp, light levels and soil conditions, the faster they will grow and the more nutrients they will need. Also this increases your risk of something going wrong. If you are growing in coir youll probably want to invest in a PH meter and also TDS meter. Where I live our tap water is hard, and its really hard to adjust to where I want it for hydroponic growing, so I installed a RO filter which eliminates almost all the TDS, without the filter my tds is around 450ppm, filtered water is consistently 15ppm. You might be better off mixing your coir 50/50 with a high quality potting soil, but be careful of regular miracle grow, it can be pretty hot if its not fresh, and might kill seedlings. Ive had good luck with Miracle grow organic fertilizer, its less hot and not as dangerous to your plants. Dont over water your plants if you use potting soil, but with coir, you can water every few days until you get drainage from the bottom of your container, coir wont hold excess water and kill your plants like potting soil can/will if you water too much. Im sure ive thoroughly confused you now, sorry if thats the case… What lights are you planning to use? If you have access to a 250w or 400w HPS light, those are less efficient than good LED, but they also work better with lower temps and wont cause the same deficiencies that LED can. HPS has more infrared radiation so it will raise the leaf temps, so ambient air temps can be kept lower, around 75f works good with HID…
