Saturday, July 24, 2010

Wild Berries in the Pacific Northwest (Huckleberry and Salmonberry)

This is a series about wild berries in the Pacific Northwest.  I decided to separate the berries in their own posts.  Here is my first post that has mostly duplicate information as this one.  Here is info on Thimbleberry, Blackcap Raspberry, and Blackberry.

Red Huckleberries




Sorry the picture isn't that great.  I'll try to get a better one.  Red huckleberries like to grow out of nurse logs.  So sometimes the bushes can be way up high.  The bushes I have seen range from about 2 feet to 10 feet tall.  They have small red berries that progress in ripeness from white to green to pink to red.  They are supposed to be ripe from late July - October but there were some ripe ones near my home in late June early July.  The early ripened berries were pretty sour, but I have tasted some sweeter ones that ripened in mid July.  Both my girls have loved them. They tasted delicious in muffins and this scone recipe.  You have to do a lot of picking to get a decent amount.

Salmonberries



I'm a little confused on the salmonberries.  There are supposedly yellow ones and red ones.  But around here I've been seeing both on the same bush.  So I'm not sure if they are both growing on the same bush or if the berries turn from yellow to red and the yellow ones aren't really ripe yet. (It seems to me that the red ones and yellow ones were growing on the same bush and they were both ripe.)  The ones that ripened in late June were pretty sour.  When I tried them a few weeks later they taste pretty plain and didn't have a whole lot of flavor.  This article said to avoid red ones, but I have no idea why.  The berry book just said there were two different kinds.  The bushes can be really tall.  Lots of the berries have been way over my head.  The bushes don't produce a whole lot of berries.  They supposedly ripen mid July to mid August, but there were ripe ones at my house in late June early July.  The ones I managed to hide from Allie ended up in ice cream and tasted good.

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