Best berries to seek out:
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In late summer and early autumn is the best time of the year to forage for some tasty berries. The best berries listed in this article are easy to spot, often grow in quantity, and are easy to collect. Since these are the best berries you can get your hands on, expect a lot of competition.
Digging up roots and other plants with underground storage organs can be a tiresome job, and beginner foragers should stick to what they can easily identify and collect. The edible berries you can find in your environment require little to no processing and can be easily preserved as jam, jelly, or leather.
Many of the native berries are somehow overlooked by the majority of people, even though the same people buy them in the grocery stores.
The best berries listed here are great flavorsome fruits available out there for free, and you should take the time to seek them out. Even more, they are highly nutritious with great content of vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients that are hard to find in such concentration in other fruits.
If you look at these fruits from a historical perspective, all of the best berries described in this article have been important foods for people throughout the centuries, especially for those not reliant on agricultural crops.
From a survival perspective, all these berries will augment your diet if you find yourself in a scenario where you have to forage for your food. Especially since some are persisting in the winter months.
Blackberries, the fruit of brambles (Rubus fruticosus), are widespread and common, but they are also sweet and flavorsome. These are the best berries to introduce your kids, as well as all your inexperienced friends, to foraging. They are a safe starting point for those wishing to learn about wild foods, and it’s extremely difficult to confuse them with anything else out there in the woods.
Blackberries grow in a tangle of thorny stems and spread in all directions. Pay attention when picking blackberries because they will harm you if you get entangled in the stems.
The best time of the year to pick them is between July and August, and you can find them in open, sunny areas. Blackberries grow wild in warmer southern states. However, the fruits are usually small, and plant yield is low in comparison to plants grown in more temperate states.
The flowers can be either pink or white, and the fruits can be red or black when ripe, depending on the species. This is a tasty snack that hiking enthusiasts like o forage with every occasion they get.
I recommend picking and enjoying them raw since later ripening fruits are not always as tasty. However, you can add them to pies, candy, and make jams for winter consumption.
Blackberry leaves are rich in tannin and are known for their antibacterial properties. They have been used medicinally since the time of the ancient Greeks. They were made into an astringent tea which is used to relieve sore throats, mouth ulcers, diarrhea and thrush
One of the best berries you can find in the wilderness that is an easily identifiable composite fruit is the Raspberry (Rubus idaeus). The raspberry plant is more upright than its cousin, the blackberry, and it has wooden stems that harbor the same prickles, although they are much more present on the greener stems.
The plants grow together, and they form a stand in one area and have leaves with a silver-green underside. You can pick the fruits in June in the South and in July in the North, and you can do it easily since the fruits can be separated with ease from the plug from which the berries are attached.
Many states grow raspberries, and California, Oregon, and Washington are the top players. This is an edible wild fruit valued by many, and the fruits can be eaten raw, made into jams and jellies, and you can even make wine from them.
The leaves can be used fresh or dried in herbal teas, providing an astringent flavor. In herbal medicine, raspberry leaves are used for some remedies, although there is no scientifically valid evidence to support their medicinal use. These are ideal picking for the wilderness explorer since raw fruits contain 86% water, 12% carbohydrates, and have about 1% protein.
Also related: Survival Foraging and Community Gardens
Cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) is a low-growing, spreading small evergreen shrub. It can be easily identified by its glossy oval leaves that have turned down around the edges with lighter undersides. Cowberries can be found throughout the Northern Hemisphere from Europe and Asia to North America.
Although these red fruits are edible, they are very sharp and acidic. They have an uncommon taste that comes from the presence of both benzoic acid and oxalic acid. You should avoid eating vast quantities of cowberries.
Even so, it was a valuable plant in the Alaska natives cuisine, and they would fry them in grease with sugar or dried fish eggs and make them into pies, jam, and jelly. They also preserve the berries alone or in grease and stored them in a birch bark basket in an underground cache, or freeze them. You can also make fruit leather, or you can simply preserve them in water since the benzoic acid is a natural preservative.
In folklore medicine, cowberries were used (and still are) as an astringent, anti-hemorrhagic, anti-debilitative, depurative, antiseptic (especially for the urethra), a diuretic, a tonic for the nervous system, and in various ways to treat breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, rheumatism, and various urogenital conditions.
The Native Americans used the berries or their juice to treat sore throats, coughs, and colds.
Elderberry is a genus of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae, and it contains between 5 and 30 species of deciduous shrubs, small trees, and herbaceous perennial plants. The leaves are pinnate with 5–9 leaflets. Each leaf is 2.0–11.8 inches long, and the leaflets have serrated margins. Since many birds and wildlife love elderberries, oftentimes, you will find berries covered with birds, which means you have found the right bush.
They bear large clusters of small white or cream-colored flowers in late spring; these are followed by clusters of small black, blue-black, or red berries. The berries can be removed by rubbing the stems gently between your fingers.
Fresh berries have a strong flavor that can be mellowed somewhat with drying. You should forage elderberries from July to August since you can make jelly, syrup, pies, or wine from them. The berries shouldn’t be consumed raw, at least not in a great quantity. If you eat it in great quantities, or if they are not ripe, you can end up having an upset stomach, nausea, and even vomiting.
In traditional medicine, elderberries have been used for their diaphoretic, laxative, and diuretic properties. They were also used to treat illnesses such as stomach ache, sinus congestion, constipation, diarrhea, sore throat, common cold, and rheumatism. Even the leaves and inner bark have been used for their purgative, emetic, diuretic, laxative, topical emollient, expectorant, and diaphoretic action.
Hawthorn is a common and widespread large bush or small tree in North America, and it can be found in woodland understory, scrub, and hedgerows. The fruits, called “mayhaws” should be picked around August when they ripen. Be careful when trying them since the fruits contain a single stone that can damage your teeth. The last thing you need in the wilderness is a dental emergency. If you prefer to eat them raw, place the fruit in your mouth, and nibble away the flesh.
Since the raw pulp is not particularly sweet, I like making fruit leather since the sweetness is enhanced by turning them into “vegan jerky.” You can also make jelly or add them to various fruit mixes., or turn them into wine. The leaves are also edible, and if you pick them in the spring, you can add them to salads. The Kutenai indigenous people used mayhaws as food, and they were a common staple.
However, several species of hawthorn were used in traditional medicine, and their primary use was as a digestive aid. Native Americans considered hawthorn as a heart tonic, and they believed is strengthens cardiovascular function. However, the first documented use of Hawthorn as heart medicine dates back to Dioscorides, a well-known physician in the first century AD.
In these modern times, Hawthorn is used in the treatment of coronary artery disease, elevated cholesterol levels, post-heart attacks, and emotional illnesses such as anxiety and restlessness.
Read next: Summer Forage: Wild Edible Fruits and Vegetables
American mountain-ash (Sorbus americana) is a relatively small tree reaching 40 feet in height with light-gray, smooth bark that shows a scaly surface in the early years and darker and papery bark when the tree reaches maturity. The treat is native to eastern North America, but it can be found in many states throughout the United States. It can be easily recognized due to its red fruits that look like miniature apples all clustered together on hanging branches.
The fruit ripens in October and remains on the tree all winter; however, if eaten raw, the taste is quite nasty (bitter and astringent). The fruits contain a good amount of vitamin C, and heating them will generally improve the flavor. You can make a hot fruit mush in the wilderness and combine it with other edibles such as wild apples or wild plums. This tree is also grown as decorative vegetation, and you can find it in many parks.
Although the taste is not very good, in my opinion, the berries are valued for their medicinal use, and the natives of North America used them extensively. A decoction of the bark was given for diarrhea and was also used for vaginal infections and menstrual problems. The ripe berries were used to treat sore throats and inflamed tonsils. Making an astringent infusion, it can be used as a remedy in hemorrhoids and strangury.
In my opinion, the berries listed in this article are the best berries you should look out for when exploring the great outdoors. Although the taste of some fruits may not be to your liking, many berries also have medicinal uses that can come in handy when no doctor is around. I recommend starting with the most easily identifiable ones that can satisfy both your sweet tooth and your desire to learn about edibles, and move towards the more “unpleasant” ones once you gathered enough experience.
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