Wild Berries

On Friday, I visited my community garden plot to do some maintenance chores such as weeding, watering, fertilizing and training the tomato vines. After finishing my chores, I decided to try foraging for some wild berries. I've never actually foraged before but I am familiar with various berries as I grow my own cultivated blackberries. The community garden is surrounded on 3 sides by various types of vegetation such as forest, brush, and high grass...all 3 are perfect berry habitat. Also, last year I noticed blackberry/dewberry in the area so I thought I would have a go at it.

I was almost immediately rewarded by finding a large patch of berries. After further inspection, I determined that the berries were black rasberries. You can tell the difference between a rasberry and blackberry by the way the stem appears after you pick it off the vine. With a rasberry, the stem will remain on the vine, leaving a concave depression within the berry. When blackberries are picked, the entire stem is removed, resulting in a berry that is more uniform in shape.


After finding the rasberries, I got very excited and decided to walk around the entire field to see what else I could find. Tucked beside a grassy path amid some overgrown brush, I found what I believe are blueberries. The bushes were in their flowering stage with clusters of several white cup-like flowers. Honeybees were busy polinating the flowers. Also, the leaf shape and size appears to be consistent with pictures of blueberry bushes. I will keep checking on these bushes to see if berries appear and turn blue...hopefully they do.