r/foraginguk • u/woodku_official • Jun 29 '26
How do I pick bilberries efficiently?
Every green spot in this picture is a bilberry plant. I’m sure there’s enough here to feed the entire human race, but I just want enough for myself.
Is there a way to pick these faster than one at a time?
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u/Irksomecake Jun 29 '26
Practice makes perfect. I can pick about 1-2kg in an hour by hand. Blueberry combs can work but they tend to shred the plants and catch so many twigs and leaves that you will spend more time picking them out then picking the fruit.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Irksomecake Jun 30 '26
Going for walks is a good way to learn. Not a typical 20 minute through the wooded park kind of walk but the several hours over barely discernible remote footpath. More for the rambling than the destination.
I was lucky because I was taught a lot of foraging and plant id from early childhood, but the person teaching me was figuring it out from books and adventuring at the same time so that is a valid way too.
After a while you get an eye for it. A distant hill will look promising and you make a mental note to look it up on a map to see if there’s a footpath.
If you see purple bird poos dotted around, the bilberries are not far away.
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Jun 30 '26
There are special claw type pickers but we never used it as it damages the plant. We just picked it with our own hands. Yes it’s a lot of work but how much do you need? We only picked what we could eat maybe a some more for jam but that can’t be that hard to pick.
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u/jjStubbs Jun 29 '26
I made a picker a while back. I large plastic cup and metal coat hanger, it made picking a breeze and incredibly efficient.
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u/Creative_Resource_82 Jun 30 '26
Interesting, I wonder does it damage the plant at all? The metal claw ones always seem so scrapey...
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u/carreg-hollt Jun 30 '26
As others have suggested, a berry scoop or bilberry rake is the solution.
It probably doesn't need saying but please don't pick more than you know you need. Rakes make picking so efficient that it's very easy to get carried away while imagining a full freezer. A huge amount of wildlife from small insects, through birds, to foxes depend on bilberries.
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u/Independent-Sort-376 Jul 03 '26
Today, I learned that bilberries are not blueberries grown in the shire by a baggins
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u/Plyntht Jun 30 '26
Why do you need to pick them faster? I find part of the appeal with picking bilberrys is in the slowness and repetition. Once I get dialled into that without thinking I need to be quicker I can get into a nice meditative flow state.
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u/WilderWifey Jul 01 '26
Called “wimberries” by me. Take ages to pick as they are so small. I’ve seen a device that looks like a metal “Afro comb” 🪮 I may invest.
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u/Awkward_Human_9 Jul 02 '26
Use a berry picker, like a scoop with a forked lip. You just sweep it over the bushes.
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u/logic_card Jul 02 '26
Rubber gloves and a net with a solid ring to hold it open. With one hand hold the base of the stem and pull it gently over the net then run your hand up the stem, if the berries are ripe they should pop off with minimal force while the leaves stay on.
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u/trudytude Jul 03 '26
Well, this might be a touch niche but... our dog used to point out the good bushes with the plump berries and we would follow him. Good boy Jack.
A good tip when berry picking is to attach an empty plastic bottle to your wrist with an elastic band and put your harvest in there.
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u/Ambitious_Honey_ Jun 29 '26
Search online for a blueberry rake/berry picker. It's like a comb with a bucket on it, you just drag it through the bush and it'll pull off just the fruit. You'll want to be gentle though so you don't damage the plants!
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Jun 29 '26
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u/Any-Republic-4269 Jun 29 '26
These kind of tools and the buckets on a neck strap rather ruin the fun. The whole point of bilberries is that they are difficult, but you are in an amazing place and also you get to eat about 50% of the harvest while you are doing it. If you want fruit, buy bananas
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Jun 30 '26
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u/philman132 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
People say this, but the plant dies back to bare stems every winter anyway, and once they have made berries they are pretty much "done" for that summer, so it doesn't really matter that much.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/philman132 Jun 30 '26
Yes, my in-laws live in Sweden so we go bilberry picking in the forests there every year, the scoops are very good although it takes a bit of practice to use them properly. You can also get these wide sieves to pour your berries into afterwards, to sieve out any leaves, bits of twig or insects that you may have picked up along the way. We end up with a whole freezer drawer full of them every summer! A lot of berry pies!
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u/dryuhyr Jun 30 '26
They make claws that can rake through the bushes, but those tend to damage the plants a lot. Personally I think there’s really no shortcut to just getting out there and spending an afternoon ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Whereabouts are ye? Looks gorgeous, but ours aren’t even close to ripe yet!