Wild Berry Picking 101
The berry season is now in full swing here. I have the purple hands and scratched legs to prove it. Picking wild berries is one of my favorite activities. You get fresh air, a little exercise and free delicious healthy food for your family.
I've also noticed that I've been getting a lot of hits to my blogs from blackberry related google searches. One thing I really haven't talked about is picking them. Here is a quick tutorial for picking wild berries.
At about the same time, you will find blackberries, red raspberries and black raspberries. The plants are similar. The leaves are compound; in three parts. They are oval and toothed. The plants have lots of thorns. The easiest way to tell them apart is when you pick a berry. A picked raspberry will be hollow, resembling a cup. The blackberry will not be hollow. There are no poisonous look a likes of the fruit. The fruits do have slightly different tastes, but I use them mixed and interchangeably in recipes. Now that you know what you are looking for, get out there and pick.
Dress appropriately. You will want to wear sturdy shoes, long sleeves and pants. This will help protect you from the thorns. It also help protect you from bug bites. You may also want gloves.
How to get the good ones. You know berries are ripe when they practically fall of the stem as you are picking. Blackberries especially, will look ripe before they are really ready. If you have to tug at them, they are not ready. Bigger is better for berries. The larger ones will be sweeter and juicier. The smaller ones will still work though. Look carefully. Often the best berries are hidden.
After picking your berries, rinse throughly or soak in a little salt water. Then use them in your favorite recipes. Berry pie is really easy to make.
Berry Pie
Scoop three cups of berries into a pie crust. Dot with 1 TB of butter. Mix 1/2 C brown sugar with 1 tsp of cornstarch and pour over the berries. Put top pie crust on. Seal edges. Use a knife to make a vent on the top of the crust. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 400 F and bake for 30 minutes until the crust is a nice golden color.
More recipes: Berry Cobbler and Syrup,
For more frugal ideas and tips visit Frugal Fridays.
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11 comments:
I would also add that a small stick about yard stick sized with a nail sticking out the end 3/4 of the way at a 90-degree angle makes an excellent hook to grab those vines that are just out of reach. Also, avoid picking near heavily travel roads as the polution from the traffic is on the berries.
Our berries aren't on for another few weeks, and blueberries not until August but you've got me dreaming now.
Good tip about picking by the road.
That stick is a great idea. I try to grab a leaf and pull the vine toward me. I am sure the stick is much more efficient! :)
I am crying. I want blackberries. I did find 4 the other day at this little city park by us. They weren't that ripe but I ate them anyhow! I need to look into some of those local farms that have blackberries, I guess.
Sigh. We're past berries here in North Texas, but we did enjoy the dewberries and mulberries last spring.
Mike was picking raspberries when we went to an outdoor wedding reception a couple of weeks ago. I'm not a fan of raspberries, but everyone said they tasted good.
Another blackberry/raspberry picking note-scooch down and then look up. There are frequently a ton of berries hidden under the lower leaves that you probably missed :)
Oh, and if you wear a baseball hat with a brim it can keep the sun out of your eyes and give you a little bit of protection from getting whacked in the face with a bramble (ok, not a lot, but at least some)
I'm jealous-I missed strawberries, but the blueberries should be ripe sometime next week on my friends land--the blackberries come several weeks after that!
Hello,
I've been picking tons of black berries lately myself. They are so tasty!
I would like to make a very important point when picking "free"berries:
Please, please please make sure you get permission to pick berries if they are not on your property. Berries along the roadside and in ditches belong to the property owener. In our area land owners own right up to about 1 foot before the side of the road so that includes just about all vegetation.
It is so disheartening to find someone has picked your berries without so much as a "may I?"
Take Care,
Trixie
Check your city streets and avenues... here in Albany NY we have many Mulberry Trees (I have counted 15, 5 of which are within 15 minutes from my home)... I've posted about them HERE!
We picked blueberries in May - yum!
I was stuck in Gatwick, for a day or two last August and I spent some of my time eating blackberries along the walking paths. I don't know much about England, but the little bit that I walked around in had these narrow walking paths between properties. The public has a 'right of way' between suburban back yards.
In residential areas, only eat ones that are too high to have been peed on.
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