Community Chat

[Ane1Care]

I'm in the Appalachian foothills, literally surrounded by hills and mountains. Every summer brings bountiful berries, from blue to various cluster berries (black, dew, muscadines,  rasp, scuppernong, even straw and mock straw). The Parks Service and Game Warden have signs posted in popular areas incouraging folks to pick them to help keep black bears out of the area, but with campers comes food, and poor food storage, or littering and thus bears come close....not to mention most like to camp on river banks where bears fish.

My back yard is met with a forest with a underground spring that feeds a small stream. The other day I came across a blackberry patch already teaming with fruit. While my house is on a small hill and from it to the gate at the wood line is 150 ft, I still want to pick the berries to help keep possible night encounters down.........I know I have wolves, coywolves, and coyotes cut through near the gate, and a few deer but, I've never had any bears... no tracks found or spotted any..., the county cleared out a mountain bike path in there and there's a road about 1,000 yards away from my gate, so daytime issues are nonexistent. At night, though, the woods come alive. 

So, do you or have you picked wild berries?  

[HappyDaze]

Yes, wild berries grow wild all around me too (blueberries, two kinds of blackberries, etc) and I go pick them all the time with my dogs. Yes, my dogs love to go blackberry picking- they gently pluck them off the blackberry bushes. They are soooo much better than storebought and free- can't beat that.

We do have bears around here, as well as coyotes and mountain lions. I have personally  encountered coyotes and mountain lions but not bears (I've seen their tracks though). I don't worry about them. I take the proper precautions.

[Kachina624]

When I was a child living in East Tennessee, I fondly remember our family blackberry picking excursions.  The worst of it was the chigger bites.  Mom made pies which were devine.

[Tinkrbl44]

When I was a kid, every summer we'd spend time with my grandparents in the Pocono Mountains ... and there were plenty of berries to pick.   My sisters got stung by bees a few times and my mother put a stop to it, unless we were carefully supervised.   The insects, snakes  and all the wildlife certainly weren't going to leave.

[AKgirl2]

@Ane1Care...when I was 10 my mom took my brother and I to Europe to meet our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...(my parents came to U.S. after WW11)...while staying at my grandparents home, we would pick strawberries, gooseberries, red currants, blackberries...cherries, plums, peaches, pears as well...dug up potatoes, beets, picked beans...collecting eggs, etc.   I can remember every detail, the traveling to Canada from NY to board ship, spending the whole summer waking up to fun and daily adventures.  I have my mother and her family to thank for giving a 10 year old kid some of the best experiences and memories of my life...L❤️VE you mom!  I hope they continue!

[Jk9]

I love wild berries and we had a huge stand of wild blackberries here on our farm until some kind of disease killed them. My brother in law still gathers wild blueberries for muffins....Yes our dogs picked the blackberries with us. It was so funny seeing the doxies sniff out the ones to pick. I stood at the edge of the blackberry patch each year and asked the black snake living in them to hide from me...I would never think of hurting him/her but just preferred not to have an encounter. Silly, but I did it each time I picked berries. We still have wild blueberries in our woods but the deer get there first.

[Lilysmom]

We had a large field of blackberries next to the garden at my family home.  When we were kids, we used to pick them and sell them for .25 cents a quart.  Twenty five cents got you on five rides at our exhibition so we thought that was a great price.  We also used to sell lilies of the valley.  I am happy to say that we have blackberries and lilies of the valley here on our property now as well.  The flowers I planted.  The blackberries are wild.  LM

[foggy!]

Yes we do! We can hardly wait for all the new fresh blackberries and blueberries. Its a fun, local, healthy and inexpensive family outing to go berry picking. They taste so much better than store bought berries, are more plump, more juicy, plus you get all the nutrients right off the bush. Here on the coast, there are about as many cranberry bogs as there are blueberry farms but we're ok with letting Oceanspray have those. Strawberries and raspberries are also wonderful but there are fewer raspberries due to how fragile they are. We never tire of eating blueberries...right out of the huge bowls on the kitchen counter or in pancakes or muffins. They make me feel well and there's nothing quite like that little pop when you first bite into one!

[qualitygal]

Absolutely, blueberries, up at Traverse City, is the cherry capitol. We have apples too!! Love fruit!!!!!! and fresh garden vegetables. We have all sorts of roadside tables selling and we have farmer's markets too. I love the bounty we have here, we're very lucky.

We don't pick blueberries as adults, we did all that as kids. Ate 1/2 of them!!! LOL

[Yardlie]

We have picked wild berries in the past, but I don't think we will this year. We've had so much rain this year. I hear that the 'sqeeters are terrible out in the country. Usually, they leave me alone, but with that zika virus, I don't want to run the risk...not that I'm planning any more children!