Picking and harvesting cranberries
Cranberries can be harvested 2 times a year - in the fall and spring.
The most rich in biologically active substances spring berries.
However, they have a lower percentage of vitamin C.
If harvested too early, for example in early fall, the fruit will be poor in sugars and other useful substances.
In addition, such cranberries often spoil during storage.
Nevertheless, cranberries are often picked before the onset of cold weather, when they are still almost green.
During storage, unripe berries finish ripening and turn red in color.
However, they lack a number of beneficial qualities: they have much less vitamins and organic acids.
In addition, unripe cranberries are difficult to separate from the pedicels when picking: the thin stems are torn, the berry bush suffers, and cranberry plantations suffer irreparable damage.
Therefore, in a number of Russian regions and northern national districts, cranberries may only be harvested from the second half of September.
Each year, the local press informs residents about the beginning of the cranberry picking period, and foresters are responsible for monitoring the implementation of such orders.
As for the indigenous population of the northern regions, they do not need such instructions: for example, it is the tradition of the Khanty people to start picking cranberries after the first frost, or even in early spring.
Old-timers claim that cranberries are spring berries and it was strictly forbidden to pick them in the fall.
It was believed that other berries - cowberries, cloudberries, etc. - should be eaten throughout the cold season, and cranberries should be stocked only when their supply runs out.
In the olden days, cranberries were also picked in winter, brushing snow off bog bumps.
In the old herbalists and manuals on harvesting natural raw materials in advance can be found the following recommendations: "If you collect white huckleberries, it should be left for two weeks in a bag along with moss and forest debris.
That way it will ripen nicely.
You can rebuild it later.
Clean cranberries from moss and twigs by rolling the berries on a sloping board with boards or polyethylene film.
But if unripe cranberries are rolled at once, they will spoil."
The locals use cranberry juice for long-term storage of meat and for dressing hides.
At the same time, neither the meat nor the skins ever spoil.
In general, cranberries are an important source of income for the peoples of the North.
Cranberries are stored in large birch bark boxes, where they can lie until the frosts, as birch bark allows air to pass through and prevents the berries from souring.
When frost comes, the cranberries freeze and are stored that way all winter.
The same effect can be achieved by storing berries in the freezer.
Cranberries can be eaten fresh or canned.
It is used to make marmalade, jams, jellies and juices.
Blackberries as a medicinal plant
In Russia, blueberries were called "milkberry".
It was believed to help rejuvenate the body.
In general, our ancestors very much appreciated blueberries, as they knew about its healing power.
Since ancient times, blueberries have been and remain the most popular medicinal plant.
Especially valued are its berries, which are used both fresh, dried or candied.
In official and folk French medicine, blueberries are used to treat and prevent neoplasms of various internal organs.
In addition, blueberries are famous and as an antimicrobial agent, as it can stop the reproduction of dysentery bacillus and even the causative agent of typhoid fever.
In recent studies, oxycoumarin, a substance with blood thinning properties, has been found in blueberries, which prevents the formation of blood clots and is therefore of great importance in the prevention of heart attacks and strokes.
Description
.In the regions of Russia, blueberries are called differently: blueberry, raven-berry, blueberry, etc.
The genus name of the plant Vaccinum comes from the Latin name used as early as Pliny and Virgil.
The species name myrtillus is attributed to the resemblance of blueberry leaves to myrtle leaves.
Bilberry is a low, strongly branched shrub with sharp, ribbed green branches and a creeping rhizome.
Leaves are regular, on short petioles, ovate, with serrated edges, colored light green.
The veins are faintly visible on the front surface, while on the back surface they are pronounced.
Flowers are more often solitary, less often arranged in pairs on drooping pedicels emerging from leaf axils at the bases of young twigs.
The flower corolla is greenish or pink, shaped like a bells.
The fruit is a globular black-blue berry, slightly flattened from above and with a circular "rim" formed by the remnants of the calyx.
In the center of such a calyx, at the former location of the pistil, there is its remnant or a small depression.
The flesh of fresh berries is juicy, violet-red, with many small seeds.
The flavor of the berries is slightly astringent and sour, but pleasant.
Blueberries bloom in late May and early June, and their fruits ripen at the turn of July and August.
Blueberries are widely distributed in Siberia, throughout the European part of the RSFSR, as well as in the Caucasus.
The berry is very unpretentious: it grows in pine forests, spruce forests, spruce-broadleaf forests, as well as in forest tundra and tundra and on sphagnum bogs.
In addition, blueberries are bred in special plantations.
