How to pick Sea Buckthorn berries

There are so many sea buckthorn berries (Hippophae rhamnoides) at this time of the year. They are very high in vitamin C and have an antioxidant (ORAC) profile just below acai berry – except you don’t have to fly it in from the Amazon! Just get out for a walk along the coast and these hardy bushes, with their silver grey foliage, are nestled in the sand dunes and scrub, laden with bright orange sea buckthorn berries.

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Of course the fun starts when you try to pick them! They are so full of juice (with just one seed) that they literally explode as soon as you put any pressure on them. Conventional wisdom says detach the berries with a fork, inserting the times behind the berries and picking them into a bucket. However, there are some thorns, and lots of little branches, and this is a time consuming operations. There are really only two ways to pick sea buckthorn berries…

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The first challenge is getting them off the bush. Seriously, nothing beats using a pair of secateurs. Take the small twigs from further down the stem and you won’t spoil the visual impact for other people. And don’t forget to leave plenty for the birds. You might also find a pair of gloves handy. They are spiky but personally I don’t find that the spikes get in the way much. They are well spaced out and not particularly sharp. The long branch below was picked from the from of the bush, the smaller one from further down the stem. I prefer the smaller ones as they are easier to juice from.

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One quick way to handle the berries once you have picked them and got them home, is to put them in the freezer. The hard, frozen berries are much easier to pick off the twigs as they don’t explode in your hands. This is suitable if you are going to simmer the berries to extract the juice and then strain it in a muslin bag. I don’t have room in the freezer to do this so I squeeze the juice off the twigs without picking the berries.

First wash your hands and get a large saucepan. It’s best to sit outside as until you get the hang of it the juice can go everywhere! Take a twig in your hand, the small ones fit perfectly into the palm of your hand, and with your fingers pointing down into the saucepan, gently squeeze. If your fingers are pointing down, this directs the juice into the pan and not up the walls and in your eye! Quarter turn the twig and apply more pressure, then turn again.

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If you do have some that seem to have some spikes, point it leaf end down toward the saucepan and squeeze the berries while moving your hand slightly in a downward direction. This pushes the spines over and you won’t get spiked and they grow in the direction of the leaves.

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If you’ve ever milked a cow, you will quickly notice the resemblance to milking. Milking the berries like this makes this a very fast way of processing the berries without the painstaking task of picking them off one by one. If you do want a few for decoration, use a fork to spring a few off.

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You’ll notice that in the left over twigs, although the berry skin is still attached, you are hardly wasting any juice. If you’re not sure, then put them in a dish and you’ll see how little is left in the bottom at the end. I find that one small mushroom basket full of twigs with berries, gives me a litre of cold-pressed juice.

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Once they are all squeezed, you are left with cold-pressed sea buckthorn juice, and a few leaves and twig bits. First mash with a potato masher to get any berries that have detached fully pulped. Then, strain through a sieve and then through a muslin bag to remove any debris.

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Finally, here is your lovely juice. One other advantage of doing it this way instead of simmering the berries, is that the heat doesn’t reduce the vitamin levels and, if drunk fresh, you’ll also have the benefits of those health-giving enzymes.

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However, to make it palatable and to preserve it in any quantity, you will need to heat it with sugar to make a syrup. But only after you’ve used some fresh to make marinades, sauces, sorbet, cheesecake, coulis and a whole host of tasty dishes!

Nutritional profile of sea buckthorn berry

Sea buckthorn (antioxidant ORAC profile: 70,000) contains high levels of vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids (essential for good immunity), flavonoids (good for your heart) and phytosterols (which help to reduce LDL cholesterol).

Sea buckthorn also has a complete fatty acid profile that includes omega-3s, -6s, -7s and -9s.

It is equivalent to açai berry in its high levels of antioxidants, with the advantage over açai of its omega complex profile.

Did you know?

Apparently the ancient Greeks noticed that when their horses fed on sea buckthorn leaves, their coats turned glossy and shiny. This is where the botanical name of Hippophae comes from. Hippo means horse and phaos means to shine.

21 Comments

  1. Great visuals! I will head out tomorrow on my bike for a berry-picking adventure. Fun!

  2. Anna Buchanan

    Whoa! I’m in Saskatchewan, Canada and these little orange dudes live in your part of the world?! Mother Nature IS AWESOME

  3. buckthorn boy

    there is a way way better way of collecting the juce without damaging the bush at all 🙂 you have to make a press. with neopreen on one side and a mettal perferated grill on the other that feeds into a funnel then into a small length of hose. that you attach a small 500ml drinking bottle on the end. you can then just squash a branch in the press and move on down the brance . no need to remove the branch or even the berries. presss them where they grow!! take the cold pressed juce home and sieve out the debris. refrigrate and your done

      • Yes there is a big problem pruning the entire fruit bearing branch! The Fruit for next year only grows on the very new growth of the SBT bush. So in your pictures when you show the clippings loaded with berries and the new shoots coming off that branch …you have clipped off where the new Fruit would be growing. If someone was to do that to all the Seabuckthorne plants then you would not have much of a crop for next year. Therefore, I do not agree with your comment saying that The plant will not be affected by your pruning methods.

        • Also SBT berries and leaves are far more nutritious than acai berries. The list of antioxidants and Omegas 3,6,7 and 9 in SBT.

  4. I planted sea buckthorn in my backyard. The bushes are full of berries, I will try to juice them this year. Any idea though on a recurring problem? These bushes have been growing and multiplying happily for the last 6 years or so. But once they get around 6 feet they just die. Any idea why they do that?

  5. is it okay to eat the seeds and the leaves?. example in a smoothie..
    what can you use the cut stems for??

    • I imagine the seeds would go straight through you. An oil is extracted from the seeds for use in cosmetics. I’d be careful experimenting with the leaves and stems. They’re not known to be edible, are high in tannins with an ancient use as a vermifuge, and many in this family are highly laxative.

      • I make a wonderful tea from the leaves – lots of instructions about how to do so online.

  6. I’m always looking for plants to fill my back garden and as I have arthritis, this plant will be good for me. I’m going to get me some sea buckthorn plants. I found some rosehips in the garden at the weekend,that’s the next thing to pick and make into syrup.

  7. I’ve got this from internet, and save it in my file a few years ago:
    Sea Buckthorn Green Tea (Caffeine-free) is consumed by Germans and others living in the Baltic area. The leaves contain a lot of antioxidants and minerals. Collecting the leaves also a good way to use the resources from the whole plant so we avoid waste when possible. Sea Buckthorn leaves are rich in antioxidants such as polyphenols and flavonoids, at the level you’ll find in green tea or rooibos. The minerals in the leaves are calcium and magnesium. It contains theanine, which is known for its psychological benefits. Collect leaves from the males in early summer.
    Here in the countryside of Sweden, making tea and taking care of plants has always been a natural way of providing our houses with food. This particular sea buckthorn leaf tea is something we have been fortunate to pick from our sea buckthorn trees, an often forgotten treasure beside the sea buckthorn berries.
    A rich and diverse nutritional resource, sea buckthorn leaves contain most of the biologically active compounds the berries contain although they have a greater concentration of phenolics than the berries, plus some surprises uniquely their own. For example, the leaves contain approximately 15% protein.

  8. Judy Hawke

    Interesting thankyou, I hav3 found them in Cornwall and am trying to find out how to dry them

  9. Peter Masterson

    Where can I get plants in Ireland, and what is the best soil for seabuckrhorn to grow. Do the shrub need any fertiliser in sprinh/summer to help with growth and fruiting. Peter

  10. Goodness, please, don’t promote to cut the branches!!!

    The fruits have to be remove one by one so not to damage the plant.

    And you don’t need to make a juice, fruits are very concentrated in everything.

    But if you make the juice please not that way, wasting so much of a wonderful little plant with so many benefits for animals and the people that collect them respectfully 🙏🙏🙏

    Hope you reconsider correcting this post. People read things on the internet and the next day the bushes are gone. It happened the same with oregano in the Mediterranean, it almost completely disappear because people took too much of the plant. Please 🙏

    • I guess it depends where you are. Here it is not a ‘little plant’ and is considered a highly invasive species that can quickly dominate the coastal areas smothering more delicate species. The bushes also have to be pruned back to keep the coastal paths open. But if any plant is growing in an area where it is rare or threatened, I would never advocate picking it at all. The important message is to know your own terroir and always to harvest sustainably.

  11. Julia susan Broughton

    I’m enjoying this as we have our first crop of berries this year. Do remember when buying new plants that you need to buy a male and a female plant. The female bears the berries (of course it does!). We have a recipe where you put the whole berries in a small jar with molasses to preserve and sweeten. Then eat a teaspoon of the berries and syrup each day for good health .

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