Elderberry syrup

Sep 20^th, 2025 Saturday Cloudy

Gardening is an adventure.

This is especially true for newbies like my husband and me. Neither of us has grown up with matured experience in the field – his parents never planted anything edible, or at least not successfully (they did not try very hard). As for me, while my parents both seemed to have green thumbs, we had no space or time to care for plants, and they deemed it unnecessary for me to acquire farming skills since modern society provides sufficient food for everyone.

As a result, when we first moved into our house, we were more than excited to get our hands dirty in the garden, our views of gardening largely romanticized by idyllic scenes from movies and games.

The reality is, creating and maintaining a vegetable garden in a wooded lot requires hard work and constant diligence, as well as a strong will to stand up against nature.

This year, we prepared many varieties of leafy veggies, nightshades, and squashes indoors, when the temperature outside was still too hostile. As soon as the weather started to warm up, I followed a rigorous hardening schedule to make sure all our seedlings were ready for their transplanting.

At first, that process seemed to go well. Yet we did not see the vibrant growth we hoped. Most of the baby veggies appeared stuck in their childhood – not dead, but definitely not thriving either.

Then within the course of one week, some critters (identity still unknown, though some prime suspects were named), out of spite, chewed down all of our eggplants, leaving the remnants scattered about. When our friend’s garden was overflowing with spring/summer harvest (so much that we kept getting requests to go pick as much as we want), our backyard was quickly taken over by wilderness.

Nevertheless, instead of admitting defeat, my husband took a completely new perspective. He noted that this lot WAS a forest (I would argue that it still is), so all the natural beings that inhabit here belong here, and WE are the guests. As a consequence, we might as well enjoy what is offered to us, for free (not accounting for the labor).

He started reading more about native species and foraging. Every few days, he would come home excitedly and share that he identified another unfamiliar fruit/flower/herb, and I would help him look up all the information online in several languages (it turns out that searching in different languages does yield different results).

This jar of elderberry syrup, freshly made in our kitchen, is just an example. After recognizing the two elderberry bushes, my husband was counting the days till their distinct, dark-colored berries were fully ripe (unripe ones are highly toxic). Rich in anthocyanidin, a strong antioxidant, elderberry has been used in traditional medicine for centuries. While I would not expect miraculous health benefits (no clinical studies on this so far), a couple spoonfuls of this special syrup would be an interesting addition to a breakfast, or an afternoon tea.

In a way, we are taking advantage of the ancient wisdom, accumulated through thousands of years, to live with nature.