Huckleberry season has arrived in Montana and we’ve been busy foraging and preserving huckleberries! Every year in late July, we head up to our secret huckleberry picking spot way up in the mountains. We’ve been going to the same spot for over seven years so picking huckleberries has become a family tradition every summer. This huckleberry patch covers the mountainside for as far as the eye can see. It is off the beaten path so we rarely see anyone else up there. We made our first trip up there this week and discovered the huckleberries are ripe and ready to harvest.
Once you become familiar with what huckleberry plants look like, it is easy to spot them in the forest. If you’re new to foraging for huckleberries and aren’t quite sure what to look for, I highly recommend this book. It is my favorite book to use when foraging for wild edibles in the Rocky Mountains.
We’ve seen quite a few other huckleberry patches on our adventures out in the mountains. None of them compare to the size of our secret huckleberry patch so we keep going back to the same spot. As we were driving up the dirt road that snaked around the mountain, we spied quite a few huckleberry bushes on the steep hillsides around us. The huckleberry bushes are all hanging full of big, juicy, purple berries that taste so delicious!
Foraging For Huckleberries
In the past, we just picked huckleberries by hand. We used these homemade berry picking buckets that worked great. They are made out of plastic one gallon juice or vinegar containers cut off at the top. We made a slit in the plastic sides and tied a long piece of hemp cord to each side to create a strap. These homemade berry picking buckets work great to free up both hands for picking.
Last year I read about a huckleberry rake that didn’t destroy the plants. I bought this one to try it out. Once I got the hang of how to use it, it worked amazing! I was able to harvest three to four times the amount of huckleberries than when I was hand picking. Since it worked so great, we bought another one this winter so my husband now has one too. We both used our huckleberry rakes this year and were blown away at how many huckleberries we harvested compared to hand picking!
Last year Little A wasn’t quite two years old during huckleberry harvest so she spent some of the time in a backpack on our backs. This year she is almost three and insisted on bringing her own bucket. We figured she would just sit and eat huckleberries the whole time, but she was determined to save some in her little bucket. Although she ate her fair share of huckleberries on the mountain, there were some in her bucket that she saved for her breakfast the next morning!
Cleaning Huckleberries
To clean the huckleberries, I pour them into a large bowl and cover them with water. The leaves and stems float to the top. This makes it easy to scoop them off the top with my hands and put them in the pile to be composted. Once the leaves and sticks have been removed from the water, look for any green unripe berries to remove.
Once the bowl is cleaned of most of the debris, I pick up a handful of huckleberries and place them in a colander to drain. By scooping one handful at a time, I can quickly catch any huckleberries that may have a stem still attached that needs to be removed. Once all the huckleberries have been placed in the colander, let them sit to drain and dry out.
Preserving Huckleberries
The easiest way to preserve huckleberries is to freeze them. I’ve tried a couple different techniques over the years and found the simple easy way has worked the best. One method people use is to lay the berries on a cookie sheet, freeze them, then pack them into bags. When I tried this, it took a lot of extra work and wasn’t really necessary.
Instead. after I clean the huckleberries and let them dry in the colander, I pack them directly into zip close plastic bags. I pack two cups in each bag and use the DIY method of vacuum sealing I mentioned in this post. Packing the huckleberries into bags this way without pre-freezing them on a cookie sheet is quick and easy. We never have issues with the huckleberries sticking together doing it this way. We also don’t have any issues with the huckleberries getting freezer burnt since we let them dry out before being packed into bags.
Once packed and sealed, I lay the plastic bags flat in the freezer for storage. When we want to get huckleberries out to eat, we open the bag and pull out as many as we need and refreeze the bag if there are any huckleberries left. We use the huckleberries all winter to add to pancakes, fruit crisps, smoothies, and yogurt.
I’m so excited that huckleberry season has arrived, it is the highlight of our summer every year. We’ll be heading back to our secret patch a couple more times this season to continue foraging and preserving huckleberries to feast on all winter long!
Do you forage for huckleberries? What are your favorite ways to eat huckleberries?
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How many do you usually put up for winter?
We always try to freeze at least a gallon, although sometimes we get slightly more or less than that depending on how many times we get a chance to go out and pick. Some years we harvest enough to make huckleberry jam too. Now that we have the huckleberry rakes, we’re getting way more huckleberries than in the past so we’re hoping to be able to freeze quite a few more than a gallon AND make some jam!
I saw the Montana Homesteader.com regarding preserving huckleberries.
I have froze some. Do you have a good huckleberry jam recipe? My family grew up Montana and when my Dad got off work, he would come home and away we went picking huckleberries. They are so good.
I have not make huckleberry jam before so thought if I could find a good recipe. I would make some.Thanks for your help
This is the recipe I use, substituting huckleberries for blueberries. You can also use frozen berries, which is what I almost always do.
BLUEBERRY FREEZER JAM
Prep Time: 30 min
Total Time: 24 hr 30 min
Makes: 6 (1-cup) containers or 96 servings, 1 Tbsp. each
3 cups prepared fruit (buy about 3 pt. fully ripe blueberries)
2-1/2 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl
1 cup water
1 box SURE.JELL For Less or No Sugar Needed Recipes Premium Fruit Pectin
RINSE clean plastic containers and lids with boiling water. Dry thoroughly.
STEM blueberries. Place in food processor container; cover. Pulse to evenly chop. (Do not puree.) Measure exactly 3 cups chopped blueberries into large bowl.
MIX sugar, water and pectin in large saucepan. Bring to boil on medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 min. Remove from heat. Add blueberry mixture; stir 1 min. or until well blended.
FILL all containers immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of containers; immediately cover with lids. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks or freeze extra containers up to 1 year. Thaw in refrigerator before using.
Leaves can be kept to make tea with . The tannins in it can block elastase from forming thus, in theory, preserving one’s body’s elastin making for flexible tissues and collagen and greater ability to heal injured tissues
they sound like the equivalent saskatoons (juneberries/serviceberries) in my area – we love to forage as a family! I’ve only had huckleberries once while traveling, but they left their mark on my heart (and tummy).
Actually, the huckleberries are different and much smaller than saskatoons/serviceberries/juneberries. I know this since this last weekend we found a bunch of saskatoon bushes loaded with ripe berries and we harvested a bunch after we finished picking huckleberries. That is really wonderful you have saskatoons in your area! I actually found them much easier to harvest than huckleberries since the shrubs are tall and the berries are bigger. Huckleberry picking can be tedious since the shrubs are low to the ground and the berries are so tiny. But it is worth the effort 🙂
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We have been wanting to go huckleberry picking this year but are new to Montana and have no idea when or where to go. If you feel like sharing any info we would appreciate it!
We see huckleberry bushes almost everywhere we go up in the mountains. Once you get familiar with what the shrubs look like, they are easy to spot. They are always typically ready around late July/early August but we’ve found them as late as September at the very top of the mountain where the elevation is higher and the temps are cooler.
What part of Montana are you from? I ask because I am trying to determine if they are ready in the Northwestern part of the state. Every year we come up from Southern Idaho to help my mom harvest and this year she can’t get out to see if they are ready since she just had surgery. I know they’ve had a wet spring which always seems to set the berries back. Also, I’d like to comment on how fortunate you are to have a secret spot. In the last 10 years, the number of professional pickers has been exponentially increasing in our area and they just destroy the plants when they come through. Our secret spots always seem to get discovered and we are constantly having to search for new, more remote locations to pick.
We’re in western Montana but I’ve heard that there are folks finding huckleberries up in the northwest part of the state already too. I guess it just depends on how high the elevation is where you go to pick! That’s sad to hear about the commercial pickers and the destruction. I think they give berry rakes a bad name too, which is why I didn’t get one for so many years. We do feel so blessed to have our secret spot. It is off the beaten path and the road to get there is pretty overgrown and rugged so it is not that easy to get to!
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I grew up in the Detroit area of Michigan, but we had a cabin in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula where we spent much of our summer. My favorite memory of summers growing up there was picking and gorging on huckleberries! I married a Chicagoan, and moved to Illinois back in 1984. In September of 2006, we took a dream vacation to Glacier National Park (US side) and then headed up into the Canadian Rockies. I was in huckleberry-heaven up there! My first cup of huckleberry-flavored coffee and all my wonderful childhood memories came flooding back. Everyone in my family got huckleberry pancake syrup for Christmas that year!
That’s so wonderful you were able to take that trip to Glacier and get to have huckleberries again!
It is my opinion that huckleberries should not be sold, they are a gift, not a commodity.
That said, I am also in Montana. The berries are ready, some areas beyond ready. Missoula, Seely Lake, Condon, the Bitterroot mountains. Get out and pick, they are large and very plentiful this year. We are hand picking about a gallon every 2 hours. This year we intend to try to make some wine also. I have put a gallon in the freezer and made 14 pints of jam.
I’ve never made huckleberry wine before but it sounds delicious so maybe we’ll have to try making some!
The berry picker which you are referring to is the standard equipment in Sweden for berry picking. These come in various sizes, narrower ones for children and broader ones for when it has to go fast. I prefer the old fashioned ones in all metal, as these are very steady. Google on “bärplockare” for images.
Cleaning is usually done on a roster with only lines in one direction This way you can easily shake out the branches and leaves that got stuck between the berries. Google on “bär rensa” to see some images. There are also some devices which can attached to vacuum cleaners> berries are poured in a funnel, the berries are too heavy for the hoover and fall through, but the leaves and sticks are sucked up by the hoover. This is based on the old technique of letting the berries run down a sheet while outside on a slightly windy day and letting the wind carry away the leaves and sticks, The berries are too heavy for the wind to catch and fall to the bottom of the sheet where they can easily be gathered.
Picking blueberries is part of the Swedish “Allemansrätt” which allows every person, Swedish or immigrants workers, to harvest the berries out in the wild. Many Swedish inhabitants go out to the forest to forage huckleberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) , lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus L.) and of course different kind of funghi. For the seasonal immigrant workers berry picking can be a year income.
That is so interesting, thank you for sharing that! I’m fascinated by the process of rolling the berries down a sheet on a windy day so the leaves blow away. The only challenge with that is occasionally we have a few leaves/stems with huckleberries still attached so the hand cleaning method catches those ones.
Would you be willing to share your jam recipe?
Yes, I can definitely share our jam recipe! I haven’t had a chance to write up a blog post about it yet but basically we use the exact same recipe that we do for strawberry freezer jam but use huckleberries instead of the strawberries https://montanahomesteader.com/honey-sweetened-strawberry-freezer-jam/
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After this week , will there be any sight of the purple gem ? We are from MN and coming to visit some relatives next week . Hoping to pick some and eat them fresh . Maybe a few to make jam for canning
Yes, you should be able to find them but just at high elevations. Just a few days ago we found a bunch of ripe huckleberries but we had to drive pretty far up the mountain to a high elevation. This time of year the leaves of the huckleberry bushes are starting to turn a beautiful red color so they’re easy to spot. Hope you can find some when you’re here 🙂
I have been picking huckleberries for 24 years rakes do not tear up the bush if that was true there would be no huckleberries it depends on the bees and the weather and you do not rinse the berries they have a natural protectant on them
Hi ~ I am curious about the rakes – we have a couple but last year were seen using them by some other pickers and were told you have to get a commercial license to use them. These fellow pickers claim that you have to get a permit for any method other than hand picking. We inherited the rakes from my grandparents and had not heard that in the many years we’ve used them so I’m curious if you’ve heard that? Maybe they were just jealous we were in such an awesome patch!
I’ve never heard that you need a commercial picker permit to use a rake but now I’m so curious I’m going to check into it!! What a lovely thing to inherit from your grandparents- berry rakes!
I would like to try to dry some huckelberries so they are like crasins, how would you suggest I dry them
Hi….I was needing some help and I found your website. I was recently up in Montana and bought a couple jars of Huckleberry jam but when we got them home we noticed that they weren’t “vacuum sealed”. The lid to the jars was a regular lid and not a two piece one. Is this the way that Huckleberry jam is regular made and is the jam okay to eat or should we not. Any help you could give me would be great. By the way, I did sign up for your weekly newsletter….it sounds great.
I hate to be DEBBIE downer., but if you read the rules on gathering (huckleberries) in the National Forest. You are not allowed to use rake!!! If you are on private land rake away.
This is a good reminder for folks to check the regulations on wild harvesting in areas where you are. We have a variety of public and private managed lands around us and they all have different regulations so it is important to know the rules for the different areas.