> Wild berries. I suppose those would be much easier to find than wild
> fruit trees. I have some blueberry bushes I planted, and a couple of
> raspberry bushes that are volunteers. No telling if they are actually
> wild.

I have LOTS of wild raspberries on my property.  They are very easy to tell from
domesticated ones because the fruits are much smaller and the seeds are much larger.  The
largest wild raspberry gets about the size of the smallest domesticated berry.  Only under
the best of conditions do they get bigger than about a half inch in diameter.  On average, it
takes about an hour of hard picking to get a quart of berries.  They are no where near as
sweet as domesticated berries, but they sure are flavorful!

Same for the wild strawberries.  I have a few of them growing in the yard.  One tiny little wild
strawberry has as much flavor as a huge California berry, and they are even smaller than
the raspberries.  I've never had enough to actually do anything with them.  I am lucky to find
four or five ripe at the same time, and I savor them.

I also have a lot of wild rosebushes, which give me rosehips in the fall.  They, too, are very
seedy.  But my mom found me this hand-crank food processing unit that extracts the pulp
from the fuzzy seeds very nicely.  Doing it by squishing the pulp through cheesecloth was a
very difficult chore.

If I have time between raspberry and rosehip seasons, I try to get out to find some wild
blueberries.  Where I live is not quite boggy enough, so I have to drive to find them.

Lingonberries (referred to as low-bush cranberries by the locals) are also plentiful in this
area.  The hard part is finding enough time to pick enough of the tiny wild berries, whatever
the variety.

Lisa Sporleder