What wild berries can you identify and pick in your area?...

[Locut0s]

I've been picking and eating wild berries here since I was a kid. My father introduced me to some and friends to others. As far as I know there are no really poisonous indigenous berries here, though I'm sure there are some that have been introduced. The following berries are very common here and easy to identify and eat:

Salmonberries


Blackberries


Huckleberries


Wild Blueberries


Salal
I only learned about Salal a few years back when I saw a women picking them in Stanley Park while hiking through and asked what she was picking. I'd seen these berries many times before but didn't know they were edible. They are rather bland but the taste they do have is quite nice.


There are in fact many more edible berries that grow here as you can see:

http://northernbushcraft.com/guide.php?ctgy=edible_plants&region=bc

But I've never learned to identify most of the others. I should try though. What fruits and berries grow wild in your neck of the woods that you have learned to identify and eat? Do you just pick them off one by one when you come across them or do you actively go out to collect them for salads and baking and the like. When blackberries come into seas, around late August or so, many people here go out with large buckets to collect tons of them. Great in pies and fruit salads!

[femmocrat]

1. We have wild black raspberries and blackberries here.

The black raspberries are small and full of seeds but they taste good. I used to pick blackberries to make a sorbet (heavenly!) but they are so overgrown with poison ivy now that I don't venture there. I have a blueberry bush and a strawberry patch but I mostly let the birds have them.

When I lived at home we had wild elderberries and currants in the surrounding woods.

[zbdent]

2. dingle

but nobody wants them ...

[Locut0s]

4. Gee, I wonder why? Hmm...

[lastlib]

3. wild gooseberries....

but I don't like them when they're "ripe," as in purple or whatever. I only eat the green ones--love the sour taste!

[Locut0s]

5. I've seen them in markets here and apparently they grow wild here...

But I've never seen or tasted them. I should look for some as I like sour tasting things

[GoCubsGo]

6. Just blackberries and highbush blueberrries.

The blueberries are very small, but still tasty. We get huge thickets of blackberries. In a good year you could get several gallons of berries from a thicket, and that's just getting the edges.

We also have wild grapes here.

[JoeyT]

7. Can eat or do eat?

We've got several of the ones you listed, though we call a few other names. Wild blueberries are called huckleberries here, for example.

There's beautyberries:



They don't actually taste like much of anything. The leaves and stem stink like crazy if you crush them, so everyone assumes they're poisonous and will kind of panic if you start eating them.

[olddots]

8. Got any mushrooms where you live ?

we tried to grow blue berries but the bugs got .

[Locut0s]

10. I'd love to collect mushrooms but...

I don't know how to identify them and it's a bit of a dangerous hobby. At least my parents have put the fear of god into me about collecting wild mushrooms. My father is kind of paranoid about that kind of thing. I'm sure you can learn to collect them safely. And yes we do have a number of good edible species here.

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. my sister, in southern Indiana

found a large dishpan full of morel mushrooms in her back yard! Morels are the only mushroom I have ever hunted because I am suspicious of any other kind!

[hobbit709]

9. Don't eat any berries from the yew.- in your part of the woods.

Around here we don't get many edible berries-too hot and dry. Most common are hackberry.

[Locut0s]

11. You mean this?...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata

I don't think we have these here, but thanks for the warning. I would never eat anything till I had researched it though

[Xyzse]

12. None... I'd die if it wasn't found in an orchard.

[Duer 157099]

13. When I was a kid we had there was this big bush in the neighbor's yard

and it had these seeds/berries on it that were mostly good for writing on the sidewalk to make hopscotch and such.

But we also used to eat them. I've never seen one since and have no idea what it was.

[JitterbugPerfume]

14. Raspberries

blackberries, huckleberries, strawberries.....I pick them, take them home, wash them in case they have pesticide or critter poop on them and eat them with gusto and pleasure!



Sometimes if they are REALLY tempting, I forego the washing and just take a chance and eat 'em

[marzipanni]

17. Not exactly wild, but in the neighborhood

The fruit of the "strawberry" tree- Rather than try to describe it, here's a link to photos and description in a website about edibles in our environs-
http://www.eattheweeds.com/the-strawberry-tree-curse-2/

Also, mulberries from a mulberry tree, delicious little yellow & blush plums that fall into my friend's yard from her neighbors' tree, and loquats.

Wild blackberries are prolific toward the cooler, foggier coastal areas north of San Francisco, but we are closer to the drier Sacramento Valley.

[mainer]

18. Deadly nightshade. Beautiful berries, said to be sweet.

They grow wild here, and the vines tangle themselves among the grapevines, where the dark blue berries might blend in with the grapes.

Eat about four or five deadly nightshade berries, and you're dead. I had to point them out to my son, because I was afraid he might try and eat one. Beware!

[Locut0s]

19. Thanks for the warning. Luckily...

Deadly Nightshade doesn't grow here. Though I'll be sure to memorize the look of it anyway if I decide to go berry hunting.

[nolabear]

20. All those, but we are in blackberry heaven/hell around here.

They're the kudzu of the Northwest, but delicious.

[Locut0s]

21. I AM in the northwest :)...

Vancouver Canada.

I agree blackberries are a weed everywhere here.

[nolabear]

23. I suspected so from the Salal and Salmonberries.

We all need pet goats to keep those blackberries at bay!

[Locut0s]

25. Lol wild goats would be cool...

Though they'd quickly become a nuisance as well I'm sure. It's also kind of nice to be able to pick blackberries wild by the ton

[nolabear]

26. My sister went into overload when she visited one summer. She couldn't stop.

We'd be driving along and she'd squeal like she'd spotted Elvis and just have to go pick some more. Of course I kind of do the same over ripe tomatoes when I visit her down South.

[Locut0s]

28. Your sig...

I just looked up the poem it's from

http://tinyurl.com/luy9z5s

Wow that's powerful! Where did you get this?

[LWolf]

22. Plenty of blackberries.

I'm sure there's plenty more, but I've only picked eaten the ubiquitous blackberries.

[El Supremo]

24. Western Chokecherries

[surrealAmerican]

27. I live in town, so nothing is very "wild" here ...

... but I do pick some mulberries and service berries. I've also tried hackberries and dogwood fruit, but didn't much like either of them.

[MineralMan]

29. When we moved into our home in

Saint Paul, I discovered a mulberry tree in the backyard by the fence. It was small and clearly a volunteer. Now, 9 years later, it is 30 feet tall and produces more fruit than we can eat. We share with the birds an squirrels.,,
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=black+mullberry&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=98C96FD071EFDFFE4A3BAF0BABDCC50659AC3BB1&selectedIndex=32