When are blueberries harvested in the forest? Berry picking: berry calendar of forest and garden berries. How berries are harvested, what berries and when can be harvested: lingonberries, cranberries, blueberries, strawberries

In July of this year, a hot time for berry growers begins: the picking of berries begins. In order not to miss the optimal time for picking, check out our berry calendar for the current year. It tells not only about the timing of picking berries, but also about their useful properties Oh.

Here you will learn how to pick cranberries and blueberries when strawberries and lingonberries are ripe, what is the difference between stone berries and princesses, and how berries such as blueberries and cloudberries are useful for the body.

On the beneficial properties of berries.

Let's talk about the characteristics that each brand of berries has. Berries, both wild and cultivated, play an important role in the human diet. They are able to increase the vitality of the body, immunity, as well as physical and mental performance. Berries are not only tasty, but also very healthy!

How to pick berries correctly.

We all love the berry to be beautiful, ripe and fragrant. But to save High Quality and useful properties of berries, you need to know how to collect them correctly.

* When picking berries, do not use scoops, combs, etc. mechanical devices. They damage fruitful berries, harm the future harvest and often spoil the berries themselves.

*Try to collect the most ripe berries - because after harvesting they do not fully ripen.

*Interesting and useful fact: for jam and canning, berries are harvested on the waning moon (they are stored longer). And in order to eat right away - you can pick berries on the Growing Moon (they have higher taste and aromatic qualities).

*It is best to pick berries during cool hours (morning and evening).

* Protect the harvested berry from direct sunlight during transportation.

Picking berries 2017: Berry calendar.

Green color in the calendar indicates the period of flowering of berries, and green - the timing of their collection.

When to pick wild berries	May	June		July		August		September	October
Cowberry
Crowberry
Blueberry
Wild strawberry
common cranberry
Cranberry small-fruited
Cranberry large-fruited
princess
Stone berry
Krasnika
Cloudberry
blueberry
Blueberry caucasian
Bilberry ovalfolia

When to harvest lingonberries.

Cowberry picking starts in August September. Cowberry - small berry dark red (wine) color with a sour, slightly bitter taste.

The harvest season for lingonberries is from the end of summer until the first snowfalls.

Lingonberries are a real storehouse of vitamins. These small bitter-sour berries contain an impressive set of biologically active substances, organic acids, sugars.

When to pick strawberries.

Wild strawberries can be harvested as early as June-July, the farther north - the later the harvest time for this berry and, accordingly, the later the harvest season ends.

Strawberries have many useful properties - this berry is a real champion in the content of iron, vitamin E, folic acid and calcium. Also, this tasty and fragrant berry contains sugars, pectins, acids, fiber, vitamins and essential oils.

Strawberry is not only a very tasty berry, it helps to restore strength faster, normalizes digestion, and helps with anemia.

Strawberries are also used in the treatment of diseases of the biliary tract, kidneys and genitourinary system, normalizes metabolism. Thanks to the properties of strawberries, toxins and cholesterol are removed from the body. Strawberries are harvested for future use by drying, freezing or rubbing with sugar.

When to pick cranberries

The cranberry picking season starts in September and lasts a very long time. Cranberry is a recognized superfood that has a lot of beneficial properties for the human body.

Cranberry is an excellent antioxidant, improves immunity due to the high content of potassium salts and vitamin C. It has pronounced natural antibiotic properties due to antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cranberries are an excellent means of preventing the formation of cholesterol plaques in plaque vessels and the formation of blood clots.

Cranberries are used for varicose veins, as it helps to increase the strength and elasticity of the walls of blood vessels and capillaries.

It is best to eat fresh or frozen cranberries.

When to collect crowberry

Crowberry (shiksha, crowberry) is a berry that grows in northern regions country. The harvest season begins in August and continues until frost.

Crowberry is one of the best health assistants. It supports the immune system, removes radionuclides from the body, treats hypertension, migraine, insomnia, metabolic disorders and convulsions.

Watery and thirst-quenching, this berry has anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, wound-healing, astringent, anticonvulsant, antispasmodic, and antioxidant properties.

This berry is unpretentious in storage (filled with water in a sterile jar, close the lid and put in a cool, dark place - this way it can be stored for years), tolerates freezing well.

When to pick blueberries

The blueberry picking season is from July to September. This berry perfectly removes radionuclides, strengthens the walls of blood vessels, normalizes the work of the heart, slows down the aging of nerve cells and the brain.

Blueberries have anti-sclerotic, cardiotonic, hypotensive and anti-inflammatory effects. It is effective in atherosclerosis, hypertension, capillary toxicosis and other diseases associated with insufficiency of blood capillaries.

When to pick blueberries

The blueberry picking season is from July to September. Blueberries have a tonic effect and speed up metabolic processes, and blueberries also have hemostatic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, analgesic and diuretic properties.

Blueberries are known in cosmetology due to their ability to slow down the aging process and rejuvenate the body. In ophthalmology, blueberries are also always on the radar - regular use of this berry improves the blood supply to the retina of the eye and accelerates the regeneration of retinal tissue.

Blueberries are a powerful natural antioxidant. It is assumed that just half a glass of blueberries a day can prevent Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's. Bilberry extract has shown the ability to strengthen the walls of blood vessels. Blueberries can lower blood cholesterol as well as some drugs and be a powerful weapon in the fight against heart disease.

For the first time, the famous ancient Roman poet Publius Virgil sang the black queen of the forest.

A contemporary of Caesar and Octavian Augustus, praising his patrons, he did not forget about healthy eating.

He presented blueberries as a panacea for almost all kinds of ailments and misfortunes.

A century later, his compatriot Pliny wrote a work of 36 books "Natural Histories", where he analyzed in detail how this berry is useful for the body.

Based on this knowledge, botanists and healers from all over Europe began to cultivate it, collect it in the forest and grow it in garden plots.

And they noticed that in their healing properties wild berries are far ahead of their garden counterparts. Mostly medicinal berries grow in pine forests, less often in mixed forests, they can be seen both on the slopes of mountains and hills, and in swampy areas.

By the way, in pine forests, blueberries are sweeter and less watery than in spruce forests. And her skin is denser, so it lasts longer.

Blueberries grow almost everywhere in Russia, there are many blueberries in Belarus and Ukraine.

And in Transcarpathia, in the village of Huklivy, even there is a monument to the black queen of the forest. There, at the foot of Mount Veliky Vokh, there is one of the largest blueberry fields, and every year the local residents arrange a holiday and praise blueberries. After all, thanks to her, they are full of health and are famous for their unrealistic longevity.

Blueberries belong to the genus Vaccinium, familiar to us from lingonberries and cranberries, of the Heather family.

In Heathers, the roots are intertwined with mushroom threads, which supply plants with humus, and in return receive substances produced by berry bushes. It turns out a mutually beneficial symbiosis, favorable for both parties.

Bushes grow from a few centimeters in the tundra zone, up to half a meter closer to the southern regions. A tall three-meter Caucasian blueberry stands apart. To collect it, you have to reach up, and not crawl on all fours.

Forest blueberries prefer moist and acidic soil and sun that breaks through woodlands. Such optimal conditions help her easily endure any vagaries of nature.

The name of the berry comes from the fact that it blackens the hands and mouth. Her color changes from unripe blue to fully ripened black and blue. If you remove the wax coating, blueberries will fully correspond to their name.

When blueberries ripen

Unlike their sisters, lingonberries and cranberries, blueberries shed their leaves and in early spring only bare orphan stems appear on the thawed patches. But already in April, the buds open, and oblong green leaves appear.

And towards the end of May - the beginning of June, you can take a camera and go to shoot blueberry blossoms. Her flowers are pale pink, with a green tint and fragrant nectar that attracts insects.

Bees especially love it, so do not yawn too much if you feel like taking a picture of blueberry flowers.

Photo of how the forest blueberry blooms:

The ripening time of the berry depends on the weather in your area, but blueberries mostly appear in July, ripen and are actively harvested from late July to early September.

This is confirmed by Russian customs. For several centuries, on July 22, the day of memory of Pankraty and Cyril, the peasants took baskets and went to the forest to quietly hunt for the black beauty.

Blueberry berry photo:

She does not ripen in the forest at the same time. On one bush you can meet from a blue berry that has just been born, to a ripe and juicy dark blue one.

But very beautiful video, which shows blueberries from ripening buds to ripe berries:

calories

The calorie content of blueberries is small, 44 kcal per 100 grams, which is 3% of daily allowance. So eat, enjoy and once again do not bother.

Blueberry harvester

There are many devices for picking blueberries, from homemade combs to purchased Finnish scoops. We checked all this on ourselves and came to the conclusion that there is nothing better than a rake.
You can familiarize yourself, watch the video and buy a harvester (rake) for picking blueberries.

Still, our workshop “Lesnaya Berry” rules!

My next stop in the forest showed that the blueberries are already beginning to ripen and it would be necessary to go to your forest in order to fully enjoy the wild berries.
Blueberries are very useful berry.
Blueberry is a perennial shrub with upright branched stems up to 40 cm high. It grows in mixed and coniferous forests, mainly in shady and swampy places. In Russia, it was believed that blueberries ripen at the end of July, after the day of Pankratius and Cyril. However, under the conditions of global warming, it is sometimes possible to collect this berry from the end of June until the first frosts.

These black berries with a bluish bloom contain vitamins of groups B, PP and C, pectin and tannins, carotene, sugars, organic acids, anthocyanins, trace elements, essential oil. According to scientists, blueberries are the absolute leader in manganese content among other wild berries. American researchers have found that anthocyanins, which are rich in blueberries, due to their unique ability to suppress the activity of free radicals, slow down the aging process.

Probably, today everyone knows that blueberries are very useful for vision: a whole range of medicines is being developed on its basis. Scientists have proven not only the beneficial effect of the berry on visual acuity (especially at night), but also on blood circulation in the retina. Due to the ability to reduce eye fatigue, blueberries are simply necessary for those whose work is associated with an increased load on the organs of vision.
These wild berries remove salt from the body, that is, they are recommended for kidney stones, rheumatism and gout. It is useful to eat blueberries for anemia, diseases of the stomach and liver. And its regular use reduces the risk of developing cancer.
Fresh blueberries are good to eat 100-200 g 2-3 times a day for visual impairment, gastritis, joint diseases and constipation. Tea made from blueberries is used as a diuretic and astringent. Very tasty vitamin fortifying tea from the fruits and leaves of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and black currants. Blueberries are also used externally: berries rubbed through a sieve are applied to eczema, acne, and non-healing wounds.

Healing and blueberry leaves. They contain substances that help lower blood sugar levels, they have astringent, anti-inflammatory and diuretic effects. Decoctions and infusions from the leaves are prescribed for diabetes. You can prepare them in the following ways.

Infusion: infuse 15 g of dry leaves for 1 hour in 400 ml of boiling water, drink 100 ml 3 times a day before meals for gastritis, diabetes and nephrolithiasis.
Decoction: boil 60 g of leaves for 20 minutes. in 1 liter of water. Drink 50 ml 3 times a day for colitis, diabetes and internal bleeding. Both a decoction and an infusion of blueberry leaves can be used to wash wounds and make enemas for hemorrhoidal bleeding.

With diarrhea, stomach diseases, enteritis and heartburn, a decoction of fruits is useful: 1 tbsp. l. dry berries pour 2 cups hot water, drink 60 ml 4 times a day before meals. This infusion is drunk in equal portions throughout the day with gout, they also rinse their mouth with stomatitis.

Now let's talk about how to prepare this healing wild berry for a long time.
Dried berries: sort fresh, whole blueberries, rinse in a colander under water, let dry, dry in the oven at first 45 °, then 60 ° C until completely dry. Dried berries can be stored for 2 years.
It is advisable to collect leaves for drying during flowering, dry in the shade, under a canopy, scattering thin layer on a wide dish. The shelf life of dried leaves is 1 year.

Blueberries can be packaged and frozen, or canned.
Natural blueberries: put the washed fruits in a jar, lightly tamping, pour boiled water at a temperature of 50–60 ° C and sterilize in boiling water at the rate of 10 minutes. per liter jar. Roll up the lid, turn over and leave it to cool completely.
To prepare natural blueberries with sugar, you need 1 kg of berries and 100-300 g of sugar. Put a third of the fruits in a saucepan, add sugar, heat under the lid until completely softened and knead thoroughly. Pour the remaining berries into a jar and pour boiling syrup over. Sterilize in boiling water for 10 minutes. per liter jar.

Blueberries are just starting to ripen. People with scoops have not yet got here. There are still few ripe berries for scoops.
Although absolutely ripe berries come across, the color of which gave them the name “blueberries”.

Many more green ones. They will only be ready by August. So there is still time to think about going to the forest.

I love walking in the forest. Enjoy the forest air, especially when there are notes of needles warmed up in the sun.

Just a warning! There are now much more mosquitoes in the forest than blueberries. If you are not a fan of the forest, to which I am, then it is better to buy blueberries in the market. But you need to go there with a dosimeter.

According to existing sanitary rules the norm of "radioactivity" of berries is 40 becquerels per kilogram. When checking dubious batches in the markets - which Izvestia was also witnessing - the dosimeter often went off scale for 1500-2000 thousand becquerels. According to experts, the fading fruits are especially rich in the cesium-137 isotope. In the body, this radionuclide is deposited in muscle tissues, the gastrointestinal tract.

By appearance, radiation berries cannot be determined. And they don't taste the same as regular ones. And, of course, by eating even a bucket of infected berries, it is impossible to get radiation sickness.

Having tasted a radiation berry, a person is unlikely to immediately feel even a slight malaise, - says Viktor Tutelyan, director of the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, - but after a few years this can lead to serious problems: radiation tends to accumulate in the body and contribute to the development of malignant tumors and others. serious illnesses. There is contamination of the internal environment of the human body with radionuclides, which are then not so easy to remove.

Therapist Olga Burmakhina adds that it is especially dangerous for pregnant women and children to enjoy the dubious berry.

Genetic diseases, mutations in the fetus are possible, says Olga. - And it may not appear immediately, but after a few years. Every year a person eats a basket of infected blueberries, and then all of a sudden, sores come out. Of course, hardly anyone will say that your thyroid gland hurts today because two years ago you tasted a kilogram of blueberries. But still, why take the risk?

Cesium-137 is the most dangerous radionuclide for humans. It is well accumulated by plants, gets into food products and rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. Its half-life is 30 years. Only 10% of this radioactive substance is excreted from the body. Everything else accumulates in the muscles, kidneys, heart, spleen, lungs, liver. Most radionuclides absorb blueberries, blueberries and lingonberries. Of the mushrooms in the ranking of "radioactivity" oil mushrooms are in the lead. Further in descending order - russula, breast, oiler, flywheel.

Eat blueberries! Your eyesight and mood will improve. And the lips and tongue will turn blue, like mine.

Many berries grow in Russia, as they say, for every taste. But to collect good harvest berries, plenty to enjoy them fresh or prepare for the future, you need to know where they grow, at what time they ripen.

Perhaps the most fragrant wild berry - wild strawberry. She has wonderful taste qualities It makes an excellent jam. Strawberries grow in abundance on the edges of birch, mixed and coniferous forests, on glades and slopes, preferring rather dry soddy-podzolic soil. It is also found in the forest between trees, but much less often, because it loves lighting. It does not tolerate excessive moisture at all, therefore it does not grow in swamps.

The ripening time of wild strawberries depends on the specific climatic conditions one area or another. In most of the European territory of Russia, it can be collected from the first ten days of June, the collection usually lasts two to three weeks.

Cowberry- a smaller, dense burgundy-red berry, often with a white barrel. This is a very useful berry. A decoction of lingonberry leaves is good for kidney diseases, berries have a beneficial effect on rheumatism, tuberculosis. Soaked lingonberries are a great side dish for meat, poultry, and fish. Due to the high concentration of a natural preservative - benzoic acid - this berry does not spoil for a long time. It is collected from the second half and until the beginning of September in coniferous forests and peat bogs.

>Extremely useful as well. It is eaten fresh, grated with sugar, jams and jelly are made from it. It has a beneficial effect on vision, eliminates disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, diseases of the oral cavity. Blueberries grow in coniferous forests, peat bogs, sometimes on mountain slopes, they are harvested in July-August.

Of course, we must not forget about forest raspberries . Although its berries are smaller than those of garden berry They are also tasty and fragrant. Raspberry has an antipyretic effect, normalizes metabolism. In many regions of Siberia, forest raspberry forests are long and very dense. Therefore, local residents, while picking berries, talk loudly, from time to time they knock on metal objects: both in order not to lose each other, and in order to scare away the bear, which also loves to eat this fragrant berry. The timing of the collection of forest raspberries falls at the end of July - the beginning of August.

In most of its range, lingonberries ripen from mid-August to mid-November. Targeted collection of natural conditions begins in early September and lasts until the first serious frosts. After the offensive severe frosts the berries on the bushes become soft, choke even in baskets or buckets and immediately release the juice. Therefore, in the second half of November and before snowfall, lingonberries are preferred to be harvested mainly for further preparation of juices, fruit drinks, jams, preserves or berries ground with sugar.

Ripe lingonberries in mid-September - all the berries on the bushes have the same color, all are quite soft, but not yet choked.

Lingonberry leaf as a medicinal raw material is harvested in the spring, immediately after the snow melts and before flowers appear on the bushes. IN southern parts range (Ukraine, the Caucasus, southern Belarus), this period falls on the end of April - May, in the north - at the end of May-June.

Leaves must be collected before flowers appear on the bushes.

To some extent, the ripening time of lingonberries varies depending on the region. In more northern areas (Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, Kamchatka, the Scandinavian countries, the Komi Republic, Alaska and the entire territory of Russia and Canada beyond the Arctic Circle), the harvest peak is in September, starting from the very beginning. South (Siberia, Leningrad region, Belarus) the bulk of the berries ripen from mid-September to mid-October.

However, there is significant heterogeneity here, depending on the forest itself and the height of the site above sea level. In the mountains of the Kola Peninsula or in the dark coniferous Karelian forests, the time for harvesting lingonberries is shifted a week or two later than in open and well-lit areas.

Also, the collection time may vary from year to year depending on weather conditions. In hot summer, the berries ripen earlier than in cold, rainy weather.

In general, there are significant differences in terms of harvesting lingonberries in different regions no. Harvesters deliberately begin to collect lingonberries when, in a given area, almost all berries turn saturated red. As a rule, this happens in the first or second decade of September.

A bit of biology: how and when lingonberries ripen

Berries are set in place of pollinated lingonberry flowers in June-early July. It takes about a month for each fruit to grow to its normal size for lingonberries. Only after this, the berries begin to change color from white or light green, first to pink, and then to red.

At this time, the berries are very hard and incredibly sour.

On a note

The size of the berries on a particular bush depends on the fertility of the soil, air temperature during the ripening period and illumination. Lingonberries grown on plantations are almost always larger than forest ones, precisely due to the abundance of fertilizers and the absence of shade.

Early set berries ripen already in the second half of July, but only in well-lit areas and in very small quantities. Around this time, in parallel with the collection of blueberries, the pickers often feast on lingonberries, but they have not yet been purposefully harvested.

Berries may be present on each bush varying degrees maturity. When some are already completely red, others may just begin to turn pink, but in general, on the same bush and in the same clearing, lingonberries ripen more evenly than in different geographical areas.

Unripe lingonberries are very sour and very bitter. As it ripens, both its acidity and bitterness decrease, when the berry becomes completely red, it is already pleasant to eat. Bitterness completely disappears in fruits frozen in the cold. But they are the least transportable and are practically not stored, being plucked from a bush.

Slightly frozen, lingonberries become much sweeter due to a decrease in the amount of acids in the berries.

Cowberry leaf, harvested as a medicinal raw material, retains the largest number useful properties just before flowering. When forming flowers, the bush spends on them, and then on the ripening of berries, a large amount of biologically active substances, and therefore the value of the leaves during this period is significantly reduced.

Since the flowering of lingonberries takes place in almost the entire area in June, it is in May - before flowering - that the leaf of the plant is collected.

Freshly picked lingonberry leaves.

Obviously, the further north the region is and the shorter the snowless period in it, the shorter the period of harvesting both leaves and cranberries in it.

Ripening terms in different countries and regions of the Russian Federation

The main places for lingonberry harvesting in Eurasia are the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic states, the Russian Arctic, Karelia and the Komi Republic, the Tomsk region, Sakhalin and Kamchatka, Primorye, the Leningrad region and the north of Belarus. Here the main harvest of lingonberries is carried out from the second half of September to the first or second half of November. As a rule, the harvesting period ends with the fall of the first snow, or with a decrease average daily temperature air below 0°C.

Not only do the berries themselves become soft during frosts, they are also difficult to dig out even from under a thin layer of snow.

IN different parts of the plant's range, the peak of collection always falls in early autumn with only slight shifts in timing:

Regions	Dates of industrial harvesting of lingonberries	Terms of harvesting lingonberry leaves
South and center of Belarus (including Minsk and Minsk region), Ukraine, Caucasus, south of Primorye	Second decade of August - third decade of October	Third decade of April Third decade of May
Moscow, Moscow region the whole Moscow region, Leningrad, Smolensk, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda, Vladimir regions (including the Smolensk Lakeland), Vitebsk, Primorye, Udmurtia, the Republic of Mari El, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Yaroslavl, Ryazan	Third decade of August - second decade of October	The second decade of May - the second decade of June
Syktyvkar and the Komi Republic, Karelia, Finland, Sweden, Norway (south of the Arctic Circle), Novosibirsk and the Novosibirsk Region, Perm, Kamchatka	First decade of September - second decade of October	Third decade of May - third decade of June
All the Arctic, including Murmansk and the Murmansk region, Arkhangelsk and the Arkhangelsk region, northern Siberia, northern Scandinavia,	First decade of September - first decade of October	First - third decade of June

As a rule, lingonberries are harvested according to plan after blueberries are harvested, along with cranberries and cloudberries. Only they don’t specially go for picking for it, but when picking other berries, “quiet hunters” in a particular area mark when the lingonberries ripen and start picking them as well.

In most regions of its growth (except for the most southern ones - the Caucasus and Ukraine), the collection ends with the first snow, when the berries are no longer visible. A significant part of them remains under the snow and serves as food for wild birds and animals.

When is it allowed to pick lingonberries in the forest?

Officially, lingonberries can be harvested at any time if the collection is carried out by hand without special devices. Starting from the end of July, when the first ripe berries appear, and until permanent snow cover is established, lingonberries can be harvested in all countries and regions.

The largest amount of lingonberries is collected in Karelia, the Scandinavian countries and the Far East.

In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, it is forbidden to use special fruit collectors in the form of buckets, rakes, scythes, scoops and others when harvesting. Due to the fact that such devices are in most cases made by the hands of the pickers themselves at home, they do not meet the safety requirements for bushes, and most bushes suffer at the site of intensive collection, which reduces the yield of the site in subsequent years.

On a note

According to special studies, in places with a very intensive collection of lingonberries with the help of "harvesters", the yield after harvest is restored within 3-8 years, depending on the type of soil. At the same time, manual harvesting in Russia and Belarus, as well as harvesting by high-quality harvesters in the Scandinavian countries (where the compliance of such devices with special standards is very strictly controlled) practically does not affect the yield of wild lingonberries.

It is forbidden to collect lingonberries - both berries and leaves - in any way in the territories of national parks and reserves. In some forestry farms it is possible to get permission to pick lingonberries, and in many cases this justifies itself: in such areas there are usually no people at all, and the berries are much larger.

Violation of this law is punishable by a fine of up to 20,000 rubles in Russia and up to 4,200 UAH in Ukraine.

Will harvested white or green lingonberries ripen at home and how long can they be stored without processing?

Lingonberries ripen at home after picking for 4-5 days. At the same time, some metabolic processes occur in its berries, due to which the amount of acids decreases and the amount of sugars increases. Consequently, a very sour and bitter berry from the forest after a few days becomes completely edible and suitable for preparing various dishes.

The ripening of lingonberries is rather limited. So, the collected white or green berry will not ripen to red, and therefore it is not worth collecting them in this form. Pink berries ripen, or red with still preserved pinkish spots. This means that it is worth counting on ripening only when, in the bulk ripe berries isolated unripe fruits are found. In this case, after a few days, all lingonberries will have a normal marketable condition and will be edible.

Harvested "in season", all lingonberries have a beautiful appearance and can be stored for a long time.

In many places beyond the Arctic Circle, the ripening of lingonberries falls on the period when the snow cover is already established. Here it makes no sense to collect it unripe: green it will not ripen at home, it will not be of culinary or commercial value, and therefore time will only be wasted on its collection.

However, due to the high content natural acids neatly plucked lingonberries practically do not deteriorate for several months after harvest. Its harvest, harvested in September-October, is usually safely stored in suitable conditions (low humidity, dark room, air temperature up to + 13 ° C) until the New Year and Christmas without freezing or canning. Therefore, you can count on the fact that for several months after picking the berries will be exactly the same as they were collected in the forest.

Berries harvested after frost quickly deteriorate. They already become soft and watery on the bushes, they begin to let the juice in the bucket when they are harvested. They need to be processed immediately upon arrival home.

Wet berries picked after rain or early morning dew should be dried after picking. By itself, lingonberries are resistant to moisture, do not absorb water and do not become limp, but when stored wet, mold may appear on it.

How to pick this berry correctly, quickly and safely

As a result, the optimal season for picking lingonberries is the end of August - mid-October. At this time, pickers go to those places where, when picking other berries or in previous years, they noted a large number of lingonberry bushes, and when a ripe berry is found, they begin to pick it purposefully, or in parallel with picking cranberries and other berries.

Interestingly, during the ripening period of lingonberries, there are fewer mosquitoes.

It is advisable to start collecting lingonberries at 9-10 in the morning, when the dew is already coming off and the collected berries will be dry.

For harvesting on an industrial scale, special hand-held harvesters are usually used. They allow you to pick berries very quickly, while if you harvest correctly and use high-quality fruit pickers, injury to the bushes will be minimal.

When harvesting, a person runs the comb of the combine from the bottom of the bush up, while holding the bush on the other side so that it does not lean. The stems and leaves of the bush pass through the comb, and the berries break off and enter the receiving chamber. When a lot of berries accumulate in the bucket, the picker pours them into a bucket.

The video shows how the berries are picked in this case:

At the same time, many pickers do not use combine harvesters as a matter of principle, as they believe that such devices will reduce the yield in subsequent years anyway. Assembly in this case is much slower, requires more effort (you need to squat) and allows you to collect a smaller amount of lingonberries.

Throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine, a picker caught by an inspector in the forest with a combine and berries can be fined. Therefore, here, with combine harvesters, berries are harvested where it is least likely to have to deal with inspectors and foresters.

On a note

Most of the pickers who go “on lingonberries” to earn money, in most cases decide to go to the Scandinavian countries, where they pay more for berries than in Russia or Ukraine, but at the same time the harvest is harvested by standard combines. Given the speed and productivity, such work allows you to earn reasonable money. However, there are also written and unwritten collection rules that must be followed for safe and efficient operation.

After picking at the end of the day, the collected berries are usually scattered for drying, moved from the leaves, packed in boxes, and the next day they are taken to the procurement office.

In a well-peeled lingonberry, there are no leaves, needles and other debris at all.

On special plantations, lingonberry harvesting is carried out with the help of semi-self-propelled combines and turns out to be even more productive than harvesting even in the most productive areas in the forest.

The video below shows such a combine:

Lingonberry leaves are harvested by hand, plucking them from the bushes. For this, it is impossible to pull out a whole bush and pluck it in weight - with such a collection, the yield of a particular area will be restored for years due to a decrease in the number of fruit-bearing bushes.

After harvesting, lingonberry leaves are laid out in a ventilated place in the shade and dried for 3-4 days, and then packed in rag bags or carton boxes and stored until use as a medicinal raw material.