Red Raspberry Season

July is red raspberry season throughout the northeast, and over the past three weeks I've been picking in several locations: Central New York, the Adirondacks, and the Shawangunks.  The garden-variety wild red raspberries are very small, but have an incredible fragrance and taste. However, since moving to New Jersey, I've found a variety that I still haven't managed to identify.  


A Fistful of Bad Boys

Instead of plucking them one at a time, it's quicker and easier to put your container right underneath and lightly guide them in. Otherwise, most end up on the forest floor, especially if they're really ripe.


Preferred Picking Technique

They're perfectly round, and at least half again larger than the typical wild ones.  While they aren't quite as sweet and flavorful straight out of the bucket, these freeze really well, and taste great in pies. If you google "red raspberries," all of the berry-related sites have extensive written descriptions, but no photos, so I have no idea which variety they are.


The Spoils From One Hour Of Picking

This brings me back to when I was 10 and wandered our back woods in central NJ looking for enough berries to make a pie, or at least a nice bowl of berries and milk.  You've got the mother load there!  They're so good!

Powderqueen wrote

Those look like wineberries, not red raspberries. Are they very sticky to the touch?

PDQ nails it -- these are wineberries.  Funny, when I first started picking them five years ago, I brought a bowlful to a neighbor who has a huge patch of cultivated black and red raspberries in his yard.  He also suggested wineberries, but noticed that they weren't particularly sticky, and figured that they were probably some other variety.  

Late last night, I was checking out those berries. I headed to the kitchen to see what we had in the fridge that would approximate berries with vanilla ice cream. No berries, no pie, no vanilla ice cream. Zelda came in –– she had the same idea. We had a bowl of chocolate mint chip.  Best we could do a midnight. Looks great James!

Looks delicious...

Our wineberries have been ripening for the last 2 weeks! A FULL 2 weeks early!!

I went out this morning and picked about 2 cups in 10 minutes, to have on my yogurt.

We also have black raspberries and my friend picked 3 gallons! Last night we made jam...about 30 jars of it! Drizzled the hot stuff on my ice cream for dessert.

We also made blackberry pie!

The wineberries are not indigenous and are considered "invasive" but I don't care because I love'm!

Now if we can only get rid of the Giant Hog weed, Garlic Mustard, Honeysuckle and Wild Parsnip, that would be a feat. Honeysuckle may smell nice in the spring, but it is totally invasive and is a bitch to cut back. It is encroaching on my trails.