Growing Honeysuckle. The Healing Properties Of Honeysuckle

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Honeysuckle - a delicious first aid kit in your garden

Edible honeysuckle gives the earliest berries in the North-West of Russia. Edible honeysuckle (Lonicera edulis Turcz.ex Freyn) is a short, up to one and a half to two meters, perennial shrub, quite decorative. Blooms in the second half of May - early June. Fruits ripen in late June - early July. This is the earliest ripening berry culture in our latitudes.

Honeysuckle fruits ripen 10-15 days earlier than strawberries. The berries are oblong, up to 10-12 mm long, resembling blueberries, but denser, bluish-blue in color. The fruits of wild species can be bitter, varietal plants are devoid of this unpleasant feature, their fruits have a pleasant sweet and sour taste and a weak aroma. Distributed in the wild in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. In nature, it grows on the outskirts of bogs, in river valleys, in the undergrowth of floodplain forests, along forest edges, in wet meadows. Cultivated varieties are grown throughout Russia, including the northern regions, in particular Karelia.

Honeysuckle berries contain many useful microelements for the body: iodine, magnesium, manganese, boron and others, and in terms of vitamin C content, it is not inferior to lemon. Due to its rich chemical composition, honeysuckle fruits are used in the treatment of hypertension and bradycardia, diabetes mellitus, obesity, as an antipyretic, diuretic, laxative, for diseases of the stomach and liver; they promote the secretion of gastric juice and increase appetite. Honeysuckle leaves are used as an antiseptic for rinsing the mouth, and in crushed form - as a wound healing agent. It is reliably known that honeysuckle removes heavy metals and radionucleides from the human body.

Honeysuckle is easily propagated by seeds and woody cuttings. During seed propagation, seeds are separated from ripe freshly picked berries, washed and immediately sown in the garden in the beds to a depth of 1-2 cm. Watered moderately, but regularly. At a temperature of 22 … 25 ° C, seedlings appear in 15-30 days. Seedling care consists in regular watering, weeding and loosening the beds. With good care, seedlings manage to get stronger before winter and overwinter well under a layer of snow. In spring or autumn, they are transplanted to a permanent place. When planting, the seedlings are still quite small, but, despite this, they are planted with a row spacing of 2 m, and in a row - after 1.5-2 m.

Propagation of honeysuckle by cuttings does not differ from propagation of black currant. Cuttings should be taken before flowering or after fruiting. Each stalk must have 2 internodes. We leave about 2 cm under the lower kidney. It is better to cut it obliquely. This will make it easier to insert the stalk into the ground. Cut off the lower and middle leaves, leave the upper ones.

If the top leaves are large, you can trim off half of the leaf blade to reduce moisture evaporation. If the bark on the cutting is too hard, you can break it with an incision in the lower part, so callus and roots form faster. In the first day, the cuttings are best kept in water (only their lower part). Then process the tips in a solution of heteroauxin or root root and plant in a greenhouse. It is advisable to cover the planted cuttings with a piece of a plastic bottle, but not very tightly, only in order to maintain moderate humidity and not interfere with air access.

Then it remains only to periodically water them and wait for rooting. Not all cuttings will take root, but only 50-60%. But this will already be an achievement. You will learn that they have taken root by the sprouts that have appeared in the leaf axils. But do not rush to remove the bottles. It is better to teach to live without shelter gradually, opening the cuttings 1, then 2, 3 hours a day.

If there is little time left before the frost, there may be no point in removing the shelter at all - let them winter like that. But this is only if the greenhouse has a collapsible roof and covers them with snow for the winter. Otherwise, in the fall, the rooted cuttings should be transplanted into the ground outside the greenhouse, taking care of a well-prepared ground hole. For the winter, such seedlings can be covered with the same plastic bottle, covered with leaves, and covered with snow on top. In the spring, such cuttings will successfully start growing.

The method of propagation by cuttings is rather complicated and not always successful, especially for novice gardeners. It is easier to root the honeysuckle by layering: tilt the branch horizontally, pin and dig in it. Cut off the rooted bush from the mother plant and transplant to a permanent place. But this method of reproduction is sometimes unacceptable, because if a given variety of honeysuckle has too high vertically standing branches, then, bending them to the ground, you can simply break it.

It is also very important to know that honeysuckle is a cross-pollinated crop, therefore, two, and preferably three specimens of different varieties are needed, preferably obtained vegetatively. When pollinating with pollen only from your own bush, the setting of berries will be weak.

Honeysuckle lives in garden conditions for up to 30 years, and the yields increase up to 15 years. Its bushes thicken strongly due to the intensive growth of young shoots. Of the shoots of the current year, 1-2 of the most powerful are left to replace the old ones, the rest are cut from the ground. Honeysuckle tolerates formative pruning: in the fall, old, broken or strongly bent branches are removed. This way you can keep the honeysuckle bush in a ball shape, which will enhance the look of your garden.

Honeysuckle fruits are consumed fresh, but many tasty preparations are made from them

In order for the berries to retain their useful qualities, they must be properly prepared.

Honeysuckle, mashed with sugar: For 1 kg of honeysuckle berries, take 1 kg of granulated sugar. If necessary, the berries are washed, then dried and kneaded until a homogeneous mass is obtained, into which sugar is added and stirred. For a more complete dissolution of sugar, the mixture is heated up to 50 … 60 ° C, but not higher. Then they are laid out in glass jars and closed with plastic lids. Store in a cool place.

Honeysuckle jam: 1st method: 1 kg of honeysuckle will need 1.2 kg of sugar, 1-2 g of citric acid. Honeysuckle berries are poured with hot (80 ° C) syrup and left for 4-5 hours. Then cook for 5-7 minutes on low heat and stand for another 5-8 hours. This is repeated 2 more times. Citric acid is added before the end of cooking.

2nd method: for 1 kg of berries - 1 kg of sugar, 1-2 g of citric acid. Honeysuckle berries are poured with boiling syrup and boiled for 5 minutes, then set aside for 6-8 hours, after which they are boiled until tender. Citric acid is added before the end of cooking. The jam tastes like blueberry, but more piquant: more aromatic and tender.

Honeysuckle compote: Prepare syrup: for 1 liter of water - 300-400 g of sugar.

1st method: prepared berries are placed in jars and poured with boiling syrup. Jars covered with lids are pasteurized at a temperature of 85 ° C: half-liter jars - 5-7 minutes, liter jars - 10-12 minutes. Then they roll it up.

2nd method: compote is made without sugar. Prepared berries are placed in jars and poured with prepared hot (80 ° C) honeysuckle juice. Cover with lids, pasteurize: half-liter cans 10, liter - 15 minutes. Banks are being rolled up.

Juicing the honeysuckle: The fruits are washed, drained and crushed. Squeeze the juice, add hot water to the pulp at the rate of 1-1.5 cups per 1 kg of pulp. Let it brew for 30 minutes and squeeze again. Combine with squeezed juice. All squeezed juice is poured into jars and pasteurized at a temperature of 85 ° C: half-liter jars - 15 minutes, liter jars - 20 minutes. Banks are rolling up. Before use, the juice is sweetened to taste with 25% sugar syrup.

Honeysuckle syrup: For 1 kg of berries - 2 kg of sugar. Freshly squeezed juice from honeysuckle berries is mixed with hot (80 ° C) sugar syrup, cooled, put in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours. Then the resulting film is removed, and the syrup is bottled. Store in a cool place.

I wish you a successful cultivation of this wonderful and healthy plant and enjoy the taste of its fruits.