Hoarding bilberries

[Martti]

Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) season is really starting this week here in Southern Finland and while I had collected some of them earlier this summer, I had never bothered to go to my special place until all of them had ripened. However when I went there I could collect all of this in few hours. The average diameter for a bilberry here seems to be c. 6.5 mm or 1/4 in., which could be said to be quite average for whole of Finland but perhaps not to areas in Central Europe.

I have now few weeks to pick enough bilberries for the winter until I partly move to other species available here: raspberry, cloudberry etc.

 

[Mafro]

They look great. What do you plan on doing with them? Apart from eating them of course

 

[Lou]

Great! what a hoard. Do you dry them Martti or preserve them in some way? We have a secret place too here in the Alps, they are known by the french as myrtilles and at this time of year tarte de myrtille can be bought in the supermarkets. We make pies too, but this year will probably just freeze the rest. Sometimes this worries me though as we have frequent power cuts and the electricity goes off and this means everything in the freezer gets ruined! I will have to try and find a way of preserving them in jars, perhaps in alcohol?

 

[Osprey]

That's a good harvest The blaeberries here are about the same size as yours, but I've never had the patience to gather more than a few handfuls at a time !
We also have cloudberries, but being further south than you (57 degrees N) they are a montane species here and rarely get enough sun to develop any flavour.

 

[Martti]

Do you dry them Martti or preserve them in some way?

These will probably go to consumption, but I usually just freeze all my bilberries as it is the easiest way here. Otherwise I either mash them up with lingonberries or preserve in water (which is quite hard to archive actually). I have never tried drying them.

 

[Ex Member - Sidney Bounty]

They look allot like what we call blue berry's here in western Canada just wondering if they the same thing or not if not how is the taste different?

 

[Martti]

They look allot like what we call blue berry's here in western Canada just wondering if they the same thing or not if not how is the taste different?

Blueberry, bilberry, they are all the same Vaccinium myrtillus. However I think the common larger cultivated species is different than the wild one. I do not now if the taste is different as I have not tasted the North American species nor the commercial ones.

Few words on how I pick up berries in general. I always go outside during the hottest time of the day, usually at 1 p.m, to avoid most of the mosquito species common here (and to avoid sun burns too!). I also wear an anorak on top of t-shirt to avoid any stings. I have a berry harvester which is at least here commonly available for few euro. I also use a special gadget that is connected to a vacuum cleaner to clear up any trash that is picked up by the harvester. Together these are the greatest things since sliced bread!

The best sites I know are dominated by pines and are very easy to walk, but there are no places like this near me so I usually just go the nearest forest.

 

[Harvestman]

Lots of them about near me at the moment. I've got one of those berry pickers too, and never used it. Now seems like a good time.

 

[Teepee]

I could eat these until I'm sick, found quite a few out last week but they were still a little small.

Theres no way I could use a berry picker, it would jsut delay the journey to my mouth.

I learnt to eat these berries properly after watching Homer Simpson eating Doughnuts.

 

[Martti]

I have now collected some ten kilograms of bilberries during a period of two weeks or so. I think it is time to move on to other berries in few weeks...

 

[21st century pict]

Sloe berries next.
.

..
blaeberry land art.
.LURTZ was here.

 

[Martti]

I went to my nearby swamp yesterday and noticed that bog bilberries (Vaccinium uliginosum) are ripe now. For cranberries I came too early, but what amount of them I found there! I have to get back there in few weeks as there was easily maybe a kilogram of cranberries per are.

 

[Muddypaws]

I have a berry harvester which is at least here commonly available for few euro. I also use a special gadget that is connected to a vacuum cleaner to clear up any trash that is picked up by the harvester.

Martti - is there any chance of a look at your vacuum device, or more info? I too have a berry harvester (home made copy of your commercially available one) and I find it takes most of the backbreaking work out of collecting berries, but I now find the hardest work to be bending over the kitchen sink picking dead leaves and pine needles out of a bowlful of berries.

Thanks in advance. Kiitos.