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Apple · Black cherry · Black chokeberry · Blueberry · Checkerberry · Chokecherry · Common grape · Partridge berry · Raspberry · Spruce · Strawberry · Wine raspberry
📍 VVXV+W7 Winchester, CT, USA
🗓 Season: August · September · October · November · July · June · April · May
🔍 When is it ripe?
Apple: Background colour changes from green to yellow or cream (variety determines final colour). Seeds inside should be brown. Flesh yields slightly to thumb pressure. A ripe apple releases with a gentle upward twist — no pulling. Check the ground for natural drops.
Blueberry: Deep blue-purple with a silvery bloom; stem scar (not stem) at the top. Taste is the best test — a truly ripe blueberry is sweet and has no pink flesh inside. Let the cluster go fully blue before picking the whole thing.
Chokecherry: Small clusters ripen from red to very dark purple-black. Intensely astringent until fully dark; seeds and leaves contain hydrocyanic acid — cook or dry before eating in quantity. Best for jams and syrups.
Common grape: Fully coloured and separates easily from the stem. Taste is the best guide — sweet with little tartness. Harvest the whole bunch at once.
Raspberry: Deep red (or gold/yellow for golden varieties) and slides off the receptacle — the hollow centre is the tell. Does not pull: a ripe raspberry separates at a touch. Extremely fragile; use within hours of picking.
Strawberry: Uniformly red with no white or green at the tip or shoulder. Strong strawberry fragrance even from a distance. Cap leaves (calyx) are fresh and green. Completely red flesh inside when cut. Wild strawberries are smaller but more intensely flavoured.
Wine raspberry: Deep red, sticky, wine-flavoured. Ripe when dark red and separates easily from the stem. Good raw or for making wine and jam.
SCHEDULE:
~ Partridgeberry: All year
~ Checkerberry: All year
~ Spruce Tips: April-May
~ Black highbush blueberries: Late June
~ Highbush blueberries: July-August - these will ripen uphill first and downhill later
~ Cherries: August-Fall
~ Grapes: Spring for the leaves, fall for the fruit, after last frost
~ All others are "unknown" as I tend to miss them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LOCATION:
Various fruits and spruce tips on Platt Hill, all accessible via the loop or by walking through the meadows. The raspberries are in the back near the park bench. The cherries include a large tree before the loop (serotina) and some choke cherries on the left side of the road before the loop.
~ There is one apple tree. If you are entering the loop on the right side it is close to the entrance on the left hand side of that path.
~ The wineberries are on one of those rocky access areas that slopes down, I believe on the right. The grapes are further downhill.
~ Partridgeberry and checkerberries can be found on the forest floor. The spruce tips can be found at the back near the raspberries and near a single black highbush blueberry bush which sits near a stump.
~ There is one elderberry bush close to the gate but it is often overgrown, making it hard to access. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTES:
PLEASE be careful of proper identification on the blueberries and cherries especially, as they grow alongside glossy false buckthorn which can look similar but is toxic. Do not eat anything wild unless you can independently confirm the identification to be correct.
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