Berry picking

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Nancy

Well-Known Member
Has anyone been picking strawberries, raspberries or blueberries this summer? We just spent the day picking, and then dealing with, strawberries. Tomorrow, at the rehearsal dinner for my niece's wedding, we will be serving strawberry shortcake. Yum.
 
Salmonberry season ended in June...huckleberries are still in season and the blackberries are very green atm :3

looking forward to trying out damsonplum canning for the first time -- now i know some of the basics of fruit canning (even tho i smoked out my apt & it helped that my sweetie loved the end results -- a tart jam that i used successfully & experimentally in a layer cake & with kraft natural peanut butter & jam sammiches for her)
 
I've picked strawberries in the past, I won't do that again. I got rashes up my arms, so did my sister. I guess we're both somewhat allergic to the plants - and when we would go it would be an all day thing, starting with the early drive, ending with washing, stemming, and freezing.

I love blueberries, so I might give that a try. I heard they really attract the bees though, and I'm scared of them. I'm also not sure where to go for them. I've picked raspberries from neighbours yards before, just a bowl full at a time, with those it's the wasps that terrify me!
 
[I love blueberries, so I might give that a try. I heard they really attract the bees though, and I'm scared of them. I'm also not sure where to go for them. I've picked raspberries from neighbours yards before, just a bowl full at a time, with those it's the wasps that terrify me!/QUOTE]

I am scared of them too! Then again I am also very allergic to them so.....it's like someone running after me with a knife.
 
As a child my siblings and I were expected to pick enough wide berries to have our fill of fresh berries (eaten by the handful, or with milk and sugar, or in pies, puddings, cakes - on cereal - in pancakes) and to supply our mother for making jam fill our cellar shelves for the winter months. Then, once our family was taken care of, we could pick more to sell for pocket money for a popsicle or bottle of pop. It was one of my favourite chores and a great activity for the summer months. When I reached my teens I would join a group of young people and take the express train down to an area that had been burned over and the blueberry picking was fabulous. A person could fill a twelve quart pail in an afternoon. We'd remind the conductor on the way down to stop (small flag-stop station) on the way back, and catch a ride home. Sometimes we would sell a few quarts of berries to the train crew, or to first-class passengers who would come out to the second-class car to see us - fly-bitten, sweaty, and dirty from the day outside. One of my favourite memories of back-home.

In recent years I haven't had the opportunity to pick wild berries, and I haven't picked cultivated strawberries in the last two years. Seelerman isn't much of a picker.
 
We used to grow strawberries on our family farm, and it was one of my jobs to pick berries every second day. Now, we go to a u-pick place, where the growing and caring of plants is done by someone else! My mom came with me and my husband. She's 80 years old, and a picker to be reckoned with. She picked, and then did cleaned three big pails worth, and went home to make jam! I hope I'm like her when I'm 80!
 
My sweetheart of a husband picks wildberries for me. The other day he picked me wild strawberries. The raspberries will be next, but not for a good few weeks yet, and then finally in August, blueberries.
 
Nowadays we don't need as many berries as we did when the kids were at home. This year I have picked enough Haskaps for a batch of jam and a few jars of sauce for pancakes. Am waiting on the sour cherries, saskatoons, cranberries plums, apples/crabs, blackcurrants and gooseberries. They all grow in our garden, which we planned to be 'fruit rich'. I recall some pretty miserable LONG days of berry picking with female in-laws.
 
Actually, I should check the raspberry bushes at the side of my house and see if we've got any. Last year was a bit of a bust but the bushes are looking pretty nice this year so hopefully we'll get a crop.
 
just came back from a walk in the Torontonian furnacesmeltheat. saw more huckleberries (well, i THINK they are huckleberries -- my wife and i tried one berry each with no ill effects). ate some. mmm juicy.

saw a robin eating some of them -- so they must be safe then?

heard (then saw) two brave small birds trying to get a crow to leave their tree
 
@KayTheCurler - what are "Haskaps" - I've not heard of this word before.

Nancy - strawberry shortcake!! My mouth is watering just thinking of it! My favourite was with angel-food cake - what about you?

My grandparents had a berry farm (strawberries & raspberries; and later crops of gladiolas & lilac bushes) I spent lots of time there in my childhood - very fond memories of the berry pickers, 'the stand' out by the road that I often tended (yup 3 quarts for a dollar! - last week at market I paid $10 for 2 quarts of strawberries!), drives to town grocery stores with a VW van loaded with berries ... lots of fun things for a kid.

When I camped with my family when I was a kid, we would often pick blueberries - so sweet & delicious. We'd keep one eye open for the bears that also found them to be delectable.

Used to pick wild raspberries & blackberries on the cottage lane with our kids - such fun! Took them back for grandpa to use in the breakfast pancakes the next morning. More made it directly into mouths than into pancakes tho! Went a few time with the kids to 'pick your own' farms more locally too - lots of fun for them to actually be harvesting their own strawberries - and realizing it is HARD work!
 
IN northern Manitoba when I was a kid, we picked low bush blueberries. Sat on the ground and picked pails in marshy land. They were large and juicy.

We also picked wild gooseberries and pin cherries.
 
I am going to strawberry u pick this Sunday. What is the price in your area? Here the harvest is late, started just last with $ 4 a quart at the market. The u pick will be $ 1.50/ quart. I have a fruit smoothy every morning, soI try to fillupmyfreezer withberries as much as I can.
 
Here in southern ontario - price in the stores & markets seems to $6.00/quart - or 2 for $10. I haven't been to any farms to pick, so don't know the prices there this year.
 
@Carolla - here is an information link about Haskaps -

http://haskap.ca/

We find them delicious and love the way they mature so early in the season. They can be successfully used in recipes that usually call for blueberries - if you don't eat them as you pick!.

@crazyheart - I too have done that picking of low bush blueberries thing in northern Manitoba. I didn't find the berries to be big and juicy though - they were tiny and juicy and wonderfully tasty. It seemed to take forever to get a pail full (but maybe that was because I spent a lot of time swatting the mosquitos that landed on me!).
 
@crazyheart - I too have done that picking of low bush blueberries thing in northern Manitoba. I didn't find the berries to be big and juicy though - they were tiny and juicy and wonderfully tasty. It seemed to take forever to get a pail full (but maybe that was because I spent a lot of time swatting the mosquitos that landed on me!).
I've never gone, but from what my grandma picked, that's what I remember. They were the best frozen. Even now, when we buy a big things of blueberries, I eat the big ones fresh and freeze the small ones although they aren't quite the same. Chemguy has messed up a few times and grabbed the separate little ones (still in the fridge) instead of washing from the big package because he doesn't get it. He's learned and just keeps me happy even if he thinks it's weird :)
 
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