wild harvest: berries!

[el-bagr]

Anyone else been munching on wild berries found while hiking? Forest strawberries have come and gone, but last weekend we feasted on skunk currants (delicious, not stinky when ripe) atop Mount Tom. You can't avoid them up there! A few wild raspberries down lower in Crawford Notch, but plenty more to come on high.

What have you found in your neck of the woods, fellow foragers?

 

[Gris]

Middle Z-Loaf is covered in blueberries, just getting fully ripe!

 

[Artex]

Blueberries

They're starting to come out in the woods behind my house. I picked a good cup full in about half an hour a few days ago, and they're still a few weeks away from peaking. Good stuff.

The blog on the Mt. Washington observatory's website has a mention about berries today. Linkage

 

[lumberzac]

I love eating wild blueberries on the trail. I need to hike Rocky Peak Ridge soon, before the blueberries on blueberry cobbles are all gone.

 

[MichaelJ]

The Ethan Pond Trail below Whitewall had a ton of wild blueberries that I munched on last weekend. I expect it won't be long before the entire length from Thoreau Falls to Ethan Pond is lined with thousands of them. Yum!

 

[twigeater]

This past weekend in BSP we found a few ripe blueberries, some raspberries, and a ton of service berries - yum!
One little girl with us had never picked berries "in the wild" so it was really cool.

 

[arghman]

cool thread! edible plants are what got me interested in botany a few years ago.

skunk currant's a new one for me, I didn't know they were edible.

Black crowberry and cloudberry over at Quoddy Head a week ago, neither of which I would recommend other than to try at least once if you see them somewhere in enough abundance for foraging. Crowberries are too small, tasty except for the seeds which have a slight bitterness. Cloudberries remind me of rotten apricots with the texture of that part of the tomato which has the seeds & juice and a thin membrane. I've tried them straight from the plant & also commercial preserves from Finland ($4 at IKEA), didn't enjoy either.

I have not yet done a taste test on the various blueberry species (Vaccinium), I'm told the bilberries are the best (V. uliginosum), those are the short matted plants above treeline with the round leaves (vs. most blueberries w/ pointed ovoid leaves).

 

[el-bagr]

Skunk currants are indeed tasty, but only when ripe. First a tangy taste, then a bit of skunk, then sweet tanginess again. Don't worry about the spikes on the fruit; they're soft when ripe. (When sharing, have people taste it before you tell them its name.)

Bakedappleberries (cloudberries) aren't bad, but it can be tough to find enough to harvest while leaving enough seeds for natural recruitment. This is one where I try to spit the seeds back into the bog in the off chance that they'll germinate in place. Hearing your description, I wonder if I'm having them a bit unripe -- I shoot for when they're salmon-colored? These berries are made into an interesting beer in Quebec, by the way.

If you're into Vaccinium, try finding wild V. angustifolium and V. myrtilloides. V. myrtilloides is more sour -- yum.

Anyone else like Viburnum trilobum ("highbush cranberry")? Hobblebush's tasty cousin...

 

[oldfogie]

The most wild blueberries I saw in my life were on the Spotted/East Dix Ridge.

 

[ADK Rick]

There are soo many places with lots of berries in the adirondacks. What I can't get over is how few people even realize what they are walking right past. Rarely do I go by a good blackberry or blueberry patch in season and find them picked clean. And God forbid someone should see you picking and eating..."Aren't you afraid you'll get sick??" I guess many people have never seen a blueberry that wasn't in a green plastic container under shrink-wrap.

Oh well, more for me!

ADK Rick

 

[arghman]

Bakedappleberries (cloudberries) aren't bad, but it can be tough to find enough to harvest while leaving enough seeds for natural recruitment. This is one where I try to spit the seeds back into the bog in the off chance that they'll germinate in place. Hearing your description, I wonder if I'm having them a bit unripe -- I shoot for when they're salmon-colored?

definitely ripe, maybe just a tad overripe, they turn that nice translucent yellow-orange. (I have never tried them when they're more reddish orange and not translucent, they seemed firmer to the touch, almost "crunchy") I wouldn't worry about the seeds (I go by the 1-in-10 rule), their function is more for longer-distance dispersal (via birds/animals) whereas vegetative reproduction is the more important mechanism on a local scale. (like raspberries)

My big puzzling question is why blueberries/raspberries/etc. are so abundant -- if there's that much food, why aren't there more animals eating them? I would expect it would be much harder to find edible berries before the animals do (or is it only that way in my strawberry patch? )

 

[Mark Schaefer]

I save mountains with good berry patches for hikes this time of year. The Catskills don't have as many berries as the northern mountains, but the supplies are ample. The last two hikes I have had:
Arizona, Blackhead, and Dry Brook Ridge - blueberries and raspberries.
Huckleberry Ridge - innumerable raspberries (that ridge is a real misnomer as it has no huckleberries).

So far the blueberries are larger than normal. I still have yet to climb Ashokan High Point or visit the Shawangunks for the huckleberries and blueberries - but very soon I will. In another 2-3 weeks the Blackberries should be kicking in on Bearpen. It is a great time of the year.

 

[forestgnome]

Agreed, the blueberries on Mt Potash seem to be exceptionally plump, and typically tasty! I saw some bear poop not too far from the trail up there which was colored by the berries. The berries hail my favorite part of summer, very late July through September.

Happy Trails, all!

 

[JimB]

My son and I hiked to Mt Allen last Tuesday and there were so many red rasberries that we ate until we were full. They were at the peak of ripeness and were beginning to fall. As we hiked we could just pull handfuls while we kept walking. We met some fellow hikers who were filling Nalgene bottles. The next day, near the LOJ we saw none. Must be a different climate.

 

[masshysteria]

Jim, I remember when we did Allen at this time last year, there where raspberries all through the Floyd blowdown areas. That's a good 12 hr. hike as you know, but a few extra minutes gathering those sweet darlings was well worth the extra time.
Tom and I were on the top of Lenox Mountain, at the fire tower, and the blueberries there weren't even close to being ready. I'm wondering if the berries on the south facing meadows near the top of Bousquets might be closer to ripening?

 

[jbreen]

Last weekend, the Escarpment trail in the Catskills was full of ripened blueberries. Made for great bluebery pancakes for breakfast.

And yes, someone we passed was apalled that we let our kids eat them. I guess that celophane wrapper makes them better.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Today raspberries were in large profusion on Huntersfield (northern Long Path) in the Catskills. They should last in abundance for another 2 weeks with a few lasting until early September. I also found one small blueberry patch today. The blackberries are still 2-3 weeks from ripening, and they will last until the first frost. To paraphrase early SNL character Chico Escuela (Garrett Morris), "Hiking has been berry berry good to me."

 

[imarchant]

Overlook 7/30/05

The trail up Overlook has ripe rasberries all the way up. There are large patches of blueberries at the summit as well as more rasberries. The blueberies are large and plentiful. Made blueberry pancakes the next morning. yum!

 

[Rik]

A week ago Ashoken High Point's blueberries were getting ripe. Plenty of ripe ones to pick and plenty not quite ripe that should be ripening. Big pile of blueberry filled bear scat right in the middle of the path so beware of company!

 

[Stan]

Blueberries, blackberries and rasberries are the usual. I also like mountain cranberries and will eat wintergreen berries but they need to be accompanied by a bit of hydration for best results.

Here's a link to more wild edibles.

Wild Edibles