Why bother with moorland berries?

Late July and August are the high points of the upland foraging year. The bilberry crop on a good Welsh or Derbyshire moor, or the sedge-fringed slopes of the Pennines and the Scottish Highlands, rivals anything you will buy. These are genuine wild fruits with more acidity, more perfume and far more pectin than supermarket produce, and picking them takes you to ground that most walkers pass by without ever looking down.

The catch is that you are working in terrain that demands respect, and among plants where a mistake is not merely disappointing. Forage with a good identification guide, absolute certainty about what you are picking, and a clear understanding of where you are allowed to pick it.

The safe, familiar moorland berries

Start with the plants you can identify with confidence and build from there. All of the following are low-growing, acid-loving species found across upland Britain.

• Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) — known as blaeberry in Scotland, whinberry in the Pennines and whortleberry in the West Country. Small round leaves, greenish-pink bell flowers in spring, and blue-black berries with staining red juice, usually single on the stem. Taste is sweet, deep and faintly resinous.
• Cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) — the lingonberry of Swedish kitchens. Evergreen, glossy, leathery leaves with dark speckles beneath. Bright red berries, often in pairs, sharply acid. Superb with game and in sauces.
• Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) — a creeping, needle-leaved plant of the highest, bleakest ground. Black berries, watery and dull raw, but excellent cooked into jelly with a good squeeze of lemon.
• Wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) — tiny, intensely flavoured fruits, seeds on the surface, always with white flowers nearby. Yellow-flowered lookalikes are not strawberries; leave them.
• Rowan — orange-red berries, abundant on upland crags and in gullies. Not for eating raw; the parasorbic acid causes stomach upset. Cook them into jelly for roast lamb and venison. Never eat rowan berries straight from the tree.

Cloudberry, the amber fruit of Scottish high ground, is rare and slow to recover from picking. Admire it and leave it alone.

The dangerous lookalikes to avoid

Moorland has fewer poisonous fruiting plants than lowland woodland, but the exceptions matter, and they appear on the same edges and pathsides.

• Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) — large, shiny black berries on a bushy plant with dull purple bell flowers. Highly toxic. Found on limestone and disturbed ground, including some upland fringes.
• Woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) — scrambling climber with purple-and-yellow star flowers and bright red berries. Toxic.
• Honeysuckle berries — clusters of translucent red berries in autumn. Toxic, and easily mistaken for red currants by the careless.
• Lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum) — the orange-red berry spike that follows the spring spike of pale green flowers. Very toxic.
• Mezereon (Daphne mezereum) — a shrub with soft red berries on bare stems in late summer. Extremely toxic; even handling can irritate skin.
• Yew — the red fleshy aril is edible but the seed inside is deadly. Do not risk it, particularly with children.

If you are not wholly certain, leave the plant alone. There is no prize for a full basket and no second chance with a serious poisoning at the far end of a valley.

Know the law and the landowner

In England and Wales, picking wild fruit, flowers, foliage and fungi for personal use is generally permitted under the Theft Act 1968, provided you are not doing it for reward or sale. Uprooting a plant without permission is an offence, and wild plants are further protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In Scotland, access rights under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 allow you to pick wild fruit and fungi for personal consumption, but not for commercial gain, and not on land where access rights do not apply. Sites of Special Scientific Interest, National Nature Reserves and many protected reserves may restrict or prohibit foraging entirely, and some landowners and conservation bodies forbid it. Ask before you pick, particularly if you are in any doubt.

Harvest without harming the plant

Moorland plants are slow-growing and recover poorly from careless treatment. A few habits make a genuine difference.

• Pick with both hands free and use a hook or fork to comb through rather than tearing stems.
• Take a few berries from many plants rather than stripping one bush. Wildlife, from ring ouzel to dormouse, depends on the same crop.
• Avoid plants growing in old lead or zinc spoil heaps; heavy metals accumulate in the fruit.
• Keep away from roadsides and anything within a few metres of a public road or spraying line.
• Bilberry bushes rarely exceed knee height where grazed, but trampling damages the wiry stems. Stand on rock or path where you can.

Kit, timing and what to do with your haul

Go light but go prepared. A rigid plastic tub or a lidded bucket protects berries far better than a rucksack pocket, a walking pole helps you part heather, and long trousers tucked into socks reduce tick bites. Adders bask on warm mornings, so watch your footing. Carry a map and compass and know that weather on high moorland can turn within an hour.

Pick in dry conditions, ideally mid-morning once the dew has lifted. Eat your berries fresh, or wash, freeze on a tray and bag them later for crumbles, cordial, gin and jam. Bilberry and apple jam is one of the finest things you can make from a day on the hills. Leave no trace but footprints, and take home a basket that does credit to the ground it came from.