Selfsufficientish.com

I think I found some in a woods near my house

Just want to check, before I eat them, is there anything that looks like blaeberries that could be poisonous?


I forage for raspberries and brambles but I have been doing so since I was wee, and someone else showed me what to look for... just double checking.

This may help

http://sacredways.proboards.com/index.c ... hread=2870

I've only ever seen bilberries growing in open moorland - although it must be 40 years since I last went out picking them. They grow on teeny weeny shrubs, really close to the ground, and look more like elderberries (in size not how they grow) than blueberries.

Just make sure they're not a nightshade!!!!

I've seen them in wooded areas like at the Nine Ladies in the Peak District

I've only ever seen them on open moors

I know they grow there - the older folks in the village used to be paid for them by the cotton mills they were used for dye.

In fact, until relativly recently the whole economy around here was based on Strawberries, blaeberries and other real small scale growing.... quite a few of the locals are really happy to see what we are doing

Haven't been back up to the park, will go tomorrow me thinks...

I see them mostly in the hills, but I have found them on the edges of woodland too.

It seems a bit early in the year for blaeberries, though - I'm sure I didn't pick any before August the last few years. Mind you, the weather we've been having for several weeks now, they might be earlier this year...

I have picked them on the Wrekin in Shropshire, Stiperstones also Shropshire both picked before our school hols start as one child I care for wouldn't make the hills. Also picked at to local places to me. This week I was sitting by a pool snacking on blueberries.

Oh our school hols start next week ... arrrrrrrrrrrrgh

My mum took us picking bilberries up a hill when I was young, we call them whinberries though.
I remember us kids walking up the hill blowing 'raspberries' & calling them wind-berries!

I shall have to ask her where that hill was and go foraging :)

We have small pockets of them growing down here in Kent. I can't wait till autumn.

It's hard work picking them...

Photo!

I used to pick bilberries up on the Longmynd in Shropshire but the sheep usually got most of them.

I have a tiny bilberry plant in the garden now but it doesn't seem to be doing anything, except possibly dying slowly in with the cranberries in an old butlter's sink.

What sort of conditions do they like? - acid I guess as the rest of the family do, but wet (boggy) or dry (well drained) , sunny or shady?

It seems to me that moorland and woodland are two quite different environments! And a boggy butler's sink, something else...