Lessons on berry picking

Come summer time, berry picking is a big thing. There are lots of kinds of berries to be picked, blueberries, blackberries blah blah blah. The ones we’ve been picking so far are the multebar, or cloud berries. These cannot be cultivated, hence the only way to get them is to pluck them wild. Hence they are highly priced. Wars have been fought over them ok! Unless you like the concept of a fruit having a lot of seeds which you have to chew on, like the tomato, go ahead and pop one in your mouth. Aside from the fact that picking it literally kills your back, here’s how you do it if you ever do get addicted to it.


Step 1:
Get into good shoes, no slippers, coz you are most likely to be trudging into grassy areas. Don’t need to wear your Sunday best, coz berries don’t give a damn about your fashion anyway. Best to wear t-shirt and shorts, coz there seems to be some mysterious black stuff which keeps getting on my pants.


Step 2:
Get a bucket, or some container to put your berries in.


Step 3:
Look for a suitable location. Usually it should be some wilderness, near the mountains, a flat area which is sunny.



Step 4:
Give the area a quick scan, if you see a green patch with specks of red. Congraulations, you have found berryland. Head towards there and start picking.

Step 5:
Gently tug on the berry itself, it should come out very easily. If you have too much strength, the whole stalk may come off. Nevermind, this will also do. Important thing is to get the berry. Cloud berries are red when unripe and orange when ripe. Just pick both also can, coz the unripe ones can go ripe on its own.

berry can come off by the stalk or on its own

Left: ripe berry
Right: unripe berry

Step 6:
Once you’ve found some berries, look around. Cloud berries sometimes grow near other berry friends, so you are likely to find more berries around the same location.

Step 7:
Keep walking and picking.

Step 8:
When your bucket is full, or your back is hurting too much from the constant bending down. Stop and head back home.

Step 9:

Berry sort. Sort out the berries according to those which are ripe and those which are not. This can be quite tiresome too. Put the unripe ones on a large plate/tray and in a cool airy place to let them ripen on their own. Check it each day to take the ripe ones out.

Ripe berries in bowl, unripe berries on tray to air

Step 10:
You can either eat the ripe berries, or freeze them for later consumption or make jam on the spot, simply add sugar to the berries and mash them to pulp. Eat with bread or biscuits.

Step 11:
Cloudberries are very expensive. Other day Unni and i saw them selling for KR120/kg. ~SGD$30. So do keep your berryland secret to yourself, and go back there another day, coz you are likely to have missed some spots of berries.