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Lingonberry is a forest or swamp berry with sweet and sour vitamin berries. It grows in swamps and forests, where it can be collected from bushes and brought home. It is also grown on industrial sites for fresh consumption or for further processing.
Lingonberry: plant description
Lingonberry (Latin species name Vaccínium vítis-idaéa) belongs to the Ericaceae family. Based on its detailed description, it’s easy to imagine what it should look like and find it in nature:
- This is a shrub with non-falling, always green leaves. They are leathery, arranged alternately, and often. Their upper surface is dark green, glossy, the lower surface is matte and light green. The shape of lingonberry leaves is obovate or elliptical, their edges are slightly curved downwards.The leaf blades are small, from 0.5 to 3 cm long, up to 1.5 cm wide, and sit on short petioles.
- The rhizome of this plant is creeping, horizontally located; a fungus lives on its surface, which absorbs minerals from the soil and transfers them to the plant.
- Underground shoots with dormant buds extend from the rhizome.
- Aboveground shoots are branched, ascending, short, only 10–20 cm tall. However, if lingonberry shoots are forced to overcome some obstacle that arises in their way, then they can stretch much longer - up to 1 m.
- Its flowers are white or pale pink, bell-shaped, regular, bisexual, with an indistinct scent, sitting on short stalks. They are collected in drooping brushes of 10–20 pieces. together.
- After flowering, which takes about 2 weeks, round shiny berries appear in their place.
What the common lingonberry plant looks like is shown in the photo.
Description of lingonberries
They are small in size (up to 8 mm), red, with a dried flower calyx remaining at the top. The taste of lingonberries is characteristic - sweet and sour, with bitterness. They ripen in late summer - early autumn, but after the onset of frost they soften and become watery. They still remain on the stalks and can even hang there all winter, but in the spring they fall off from any touch. In winter, birds feed on them and spread the seeds around, spreading the plant further and further.
What kind of lingonberries are there?
Lingonberry is a typical marsh and forest berry. It grows in nature completely freely, occupying areas of varying sizes, from small clearings to large thickets. But cultural forms of this berry have also been developed and grown on an industrial scale.There are also garden lingonberries, intended for planting and growing in garden beds in private household plots. Cultivated varieties are maximally adapted to growing conditions in home gardens; they have higher yields than wild forms. The yield of berries when the plantation is completely covered is 3 centners per hectare or more.
How does lingonberry grow?
Lingonberries in nature usually grow in clumps. They consist only of lingonberries or they are interspersed with mosses, other berries - blueberries, blueberries, etc., grass. In such thickets it is not easy to identify any one plant; the roots and shoots of many specimens intertwine and form a continuous carpet. Although the lifespan of each individual wild lingonberry plant is relatively short - only 10-15 years, the entire plantation, which is formed by many specimens as they grow, can live for more than a hundred years.
The lingonberry bush grows like this: the seeds germinate and by the end of the first season, a 1–2 cm shoot with a wintering bud is formed. The main shoot grows from it the following spring, which dies off after 3 or 4 seasons, and side shoots grow in its place. Then second-order shoots appear, and then underground shoots come to the surface. They form new bushes. You can see in the photo how lingonberries grow in the forest.
When lingonberries ripen
Lingonberries ripen almost throughout their entire growing area in August or September. It is at this time that you can go into the forest to collect it. The collection season can be extended until frost, that is, in some regions until November. After the autumn cooling, the berries lose their bitterness, but become soft and, when placed in a basket, immediately release juice and flow.Therefore, berries collected in November are only suitable for quick processing into juice or for homemade preparations - making preserves, jam, as well as fresh canning with sugar.
When you can harvest wild lingonberries in Russia depends on the region. In the northern regions this can be done from the second half of September. In Siberia, the central zone, the Moscow region and the Urals, they ripen a little earlier - you can go for berries starting from the first days of September.
The time of ripening is influenced by the location of the area with lingonberries - in open plots it will ripen earlier than in those located near forest thickets. This is also influenced by the weather in the current season - if the summer is hot, the berries will ripen earlier than in a cool and rainy summer.
Lingonberry harvest dates in 2019
In each region, the start of the lingonberry harvest begins at different times, but, in general, there is no significant interval between the start of the lingonberry harvest in Russian regions. End dates also vary. Usually, berries can be picked in the southern regions several days earlier than in those located further north. The dates for harvesting lingonberries in 2019 can be found in local news.
To go for lingonberries in the swamps or forest, you must first obtain permission from the local authorities. You can obtain the appropriate permit from the environmental department. Without it, fines may be imposed on citizens, both individuals and entrepreneurs. The same applies to those who purchase assembled products.
Where do lingonberries grow in Russia?
It can be found in forests both overgrown with coniferous trees and in mixed ones, in peat bogs, especially dried out ones, in bush thickets, sometimes in lowland and mountain tundras, and alpine forests.
In Russia, this berry plant is found in the Caucasus, Altai, Ural, Karelia and northern regions, Western Siberia, and the Far East. It can be found in Ukraine in the Carpathians and in Belarus in Polesie. In general, the growing range of lingonberries as a species covers North America, the countries of Central and Northern Europe, as well as Asia.
Where to collect lingonberries in the Leningrad region
The berry is found almost throughout the region: in the Vyborg region, in the Luga region, near Priozersk. There are lingonberry places in the Leningrad region near the villages of Slantsy, Sverdlovo, Vyritsy, and in the forests near Zelenogorsk. You can get there by commuter train.
Where do lingonberries grow in the Moscow region?
In this area, the berry grows mainly in sandy areas near rivers and near swamps. In the Moscow region, it is collected mainly in the coniferous forests of the Meshchera Lowland, namely in the Shatursky and Yegoryevsky regions.
Equipment for collecting lingonberries
Picking small lingonberries by hand is a long and tedious task. In order to quickly collect them without damaging them, you can use a special device - a hand harvester. Scoops and rakes are used for the same purpose.
What is the best way to collect lingonberries: with a combine or by hand?
Definitely, hand-picking the lingonberries themselves is the most gentle. If you pick the berries one at a time, minimal damage is caused to the bush: the leaves and twigs remain intact, and the root system of the plants is not damaged.When harvested by a combine, the plant is injured in one way or another, but if you use it correctly, the damage will be insignificant. Among the disadvantages, it can be noted that in this case, in addition to berries, blades of grass, leaves, and twigs of other plants get into the harvester and after harvesting they have to be sorted out. This does not happen with manual collection.
However, a combine significantly speeds up this process, so everyone is left to make their own choice as to how best to harvest lingonberries - manually or using various devices.
Harvester for collecting lingonberries
How to get this device? You can buy it, as various variations of this device are available in retail stores. Harvesters are manufactured by different companies, so they have slight differences in size, shape and design. They are made of steel, wood or plastic. These are simple devices that include a body, a handle and a comb, which is used to pry and tear off the berries from the branches. After which they end up in a volumetric receiver (housing), from where, when it is full, they are poured into a basket. To prevent the berries from spilling back out, the design of the lingonberry harvester has a partition that can be adjusted if necessary.
It is quite possible to make a harvester for collecting lingonberries yourself, since there is nothing complicated in its design and manufacture. The main thing when making it is to remember that there is a distance of at least 5-6 mm between its teeth, so that the berries can pass between them, and also that they should be rounded, not pointed and not too thin so as not to spring. The length of such teeth is approximately 10–20 cm, sufficient to allow you to grab the entire lingonberry bush and tear it off with just one smooth movement.
You can make a combine using simple drawings that are available on the Internet. The material of manufacture can be anything, it can be wood or thin metal, for example, sheet steel. You will also need screws or self-tapping screws to connect individual parts and tools with which you will need to cut them according to patterns. The combine can also be used to collect other forest berries - cranberries, blueberries, blueberries and cloudberries.
How to quickly harvest lingonberries using a combine harvester
Using a lingonberry harvester is extremely simple - just pry the berries with it like a scoop and pull it up. In this case, the branches with leaves pass through the teeth freely, without coming off, and the berries remain and roll into the scoop.
You need to act smoothly, not jerkily. When the device’s capacity is full, pour the crop into a basket or bucket. It takes relatively little time to fill the entire harvester, as manual harvesting would require much more. You need to try not to step on the bushes and move as carefully as possible. This will keep the lingonberry bushes intact and undamaged. Next year, in this place it will be possible to again collect many tasty and healthy berries.
How to properly harvest lingonberries with a combine is shown in the video.
Lingonberry rake
This device is similar to the usual familiar rake. They also have teeth, but they are rounded, spaced 5 mm apart. Behind them is a wide container into which the picked berries fall. The rake has a fairly high handle, so it is convenient to use. Due to the fact that the rakes have a wider receiving capacity, they can be used to collect more berries at a time than with a combine.
How to quickly pick lingonberries
If you don’t have a combine or rake, you can make a simple similar device from a plastic bottle and a wooden handle. To do this, you will need a plastic bottle for mineral water, for example, or juices. But it is better to choose bottles made of durable rather than soft plastic - they will last longer. You need a bottle with a wide neck so that a wooden handle can fit into it. You will also need a sharp knife to cut a hole in the bottle and a rope or cord to tie the handle to the bottle.
How to make such a small homemade “harvester”? Everything is very simple. You must first cut a round or square hole on one side of the bottle and give it the shape of teeth on one edge. The plastic is quite hard, so these teeth will be able to tear berries from the branches without any problems and will not bend. Harvesting lingonberries using such a device is carried out in exactly the same way as with industrial combines.
Do lingonberries ripen after picking?
It is believed that this berry, even when picked not quite ripe, can ripen. Therefore, if you come to the forest, and the lingonberry bushes are strewn with unripe berries, then you should not go back. You can assemble it, bring it home and put it in a warm place.
How to ripen lingonberries at home
To stimulate ripening, you can use this method: place vegetables or fruits, for example, ripe autumn apples, next to the lingonberries. They release ethylene, a gas that causes the berries to turn red. Those who have tried this method claim that lingonberries ripened in this way are no different from those ripened on the bushes.
Conclusion
Lingonberry is a wild berry with a wonderful taste and is very healthy.It is very easy to collect from nature or grow on the plot. When it’s time to harvest, you can use various devices that simplify the work - combines, scoops, rakes. Or just pick berries with your hands.
