Wow! Thanks for the info. We love elderberries and can't wait to plant some too. I was just listening to Alan Chadwick lectures and he mentioned that gophers don't like elderberries and so gardeners of old used to take elderberry cuttings in early spring and brush it on all their plants to deter pests as well as put the cuttings into gopher runs. Very curious to know if that actually works!
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Wow thanks for that anecdote! Would be Cool if it works- let us know if you test it ;) we don’t have too many gophers...
Oh my gosh, no gophers?! That's amazing! Yes, we'll definitely be trying it soon enough because gophers abound in our neck of the woods. Luckily, wild elderberries also abound :). What kind of pests/weeds do you usually have and what's your strategy to deal with them?
haha no gophers, but we do have tunneling things-- maybe voles?? our cat sometimes gets em. we have seasonally shifting insect issues with aphids and squash bugs (destroyed nearly all the plants we had going last summer).. really our biggest "problem" is probably just sooo many rocks and poor soil! which we're slowly amending over time.
haven't figured out solutions for the top two. the aphids just go away when it dries out (seem to like moister shoulder seasons) and the squash bugs-- haven't figured that one out yet! if you have any solutions let us know :D