Summer Berry Picking

Story by Joel Wilson

Life in Sussex County in the summer is made tastefully sweet with many opportunities to sample nature's candy, namely the colorful berries that grow wild or on farms in our area.  Berry season officially opens with the appearance of the huge inflated strawberry tethered over Post's strawberry farm in Springdale sometime in early June.  It ends when the bears come back down off the mountain in September where they've devoured the many blueberries and other wild offerings that even to a bear are tastier than a bag of garbage.

There is nothing more satisfying than journeying out into a field or patch of woods with your family in search of your favorite berry.  Filling your basket provides all with immediate gratification in the form of a special treat, as well as a batch of nostalgic memories.  Your adventure can be tame -- walking across the street to the patch of blackberries that grow on that vacant lot -- or wild, such as hiking to that patch of wild blueberries guarded by anaconda-sized black snakes several miles off the Appalachian Trail.  Either way, the chase is as important as the quarry.

So what kinds of berries might one pursue?  If you're fairly domesticated in your thinking then you might just consider a visit to the local strawberry farm.  Be prepared to fork over some money, get a little dirty and sweaty, and perhaps eat a few berries before they make it to your basket.  Don't try this approach at Shop-Rite however or you might end up picking up trash for the Sheriff's Work Assistance Program instead. 

Strawberry season is pretty much over before the end of June although wild strawberries do persist for a while longer.  Raspberries, blackberries, and other like berries flourish through July, with the blueberry taking over in August.  Timing is everything -- be prepared to keep a keen eye on the berry crop of your choice lest another berry hunting family, human or otherwise, clears out your bounty.  If you are really insecure about your chances you might consider planting some bushes in your yard and securing the premises with motion detectors and the aforementioned army of snakes.

Do you have a favorite berry?  I'm partial to mulberries as I spent much of my childhood behind the mulberry bush in one way or another.   Actually I have more mulberry stories than any others.  It seems that Blue Jays find them quite enjoyable since they are uniquely tasty and make nice ammunition for creating colorful purple splotches on laundry freshly hung outside to dry.  Just ask my mother.  I also recall a summer where we fed two orphaned skunk kittens mulberries as a primary staple in their diet.  We released the skunks back into the wilds at the end of the summer, and I'll bet they're still telling their kin folk about the great summer they enjoyed being fed tasty morsels by the human beings that they had tricked into serving as their slaves.

So don't just think about berry picking as being about saving money -- it's more about creating memories and having a good time with your family and the country.

Links

A Recipe for Every Berry  (Except Mulberries)

Berry Muffins

A Berry Good Time   Some nice berry-related links and stories.

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