winberries, blueberries or bilberries

[Chambo]

I've just found out about these little berries and they are everywhere here in the woodlands of west Wales. I've had very few as I missed the season, but a local couple seem to have picked a huge amount of these. Very tasty and easy to pick/recognise.

[funkypixie]

If they are on low-growing bushes with small roundish leaves with a point at the end they sound like bilberries, (blaeberries if you're Scottish) but it's hard to tell without a pretty picture...

Anna x

[Shirley]

We've just picked heaps of them - season still happening up here in Aberdeenshire. Loads of them at Bennachie but surprisingly few people picking them... free healthy and delicious fruit and it goes to waste... Quite silly really - perhaps they should include foraging lessons in school!

[the.fee.fairy]

oooh...foraging lessons in school would be good!

However...that would mean more people knowing what things are and pickng them before i get there!

Does anyone have a pic of these berries please? There are loads of berry looking things growing near here, but i don't know the difference between berries and sloes. I don't want to pick them if they're sloes...i want to leave the sloes til after the first frost so i can make gin.

[hedgewizard]

Imho this is an out-dated piece of advice... Sloes are ripening super-early this year, so the birds will have had them long before the frosts arrive. I wait until they're a real blue colour and then pick and freeze them, then thaw them out before using. I've never bothered pricking them, they don't seem to need it once they've been frozen hard.