Rake or Fingers? Finland’s Blueberry Season Is Here!
If you want to know whether the Finnish blueberry season has started, you don’t even have to go into the forest. Just look down: bird droppings have turned purple. Birds love blueberries as much as people do, and by late July their droppings give away the fact that it’s time to head into the woods.
Blueberries are on the menu for a whole cast of forest dwellers: birds, bears, foxes, voles and other small mammals, insects…. and roughly every hiking Finn with or without a bucket. But there’s no need to worry about competition. Finns pick millions of litres of wild blueberries every single year, and even after all that, most of the crop is never picked at all.
Did you know? Finland’s wild blueberries are technically bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) — smaller and darker than the cultivated blueberries sold in supermarkets abroad.
Want to try guided berry-picking? Join our trip every summer Tuesday in Espoo, Nuuksio, just a stone’s throw from Helsinki. Read more and book your spot!
Two ways to pick, two very different vibes
Blueberry picking is a proper national pastime in Finland, and people tend to fall into one of two camps.
1. The berry rake method
- A handheld scoop with metal or plastic “teeth” that combs berries straight off the bush
- Fast and efficient — great for filling buckets quickly
- Downside: it also scoops up leaves and pine needles along with the berries
- Means a sorting session once you’re home (more on that below)
- Doesn’t damage the blueberry bushes
2. The finger-picking method
- Berries collected one or two at a time, straight into the bucket
- Slow going, but that’s rather the point
- A favourite for people who want to switch off, listen to the forest, and drift into their own thoughts
- No pressure to be efficient, no rush
Neither way is “correct.” It really just depends on whether you’re after a big haul or a bit of quiet.
Sorting the rake haul
For rake-pickers the story doesn’t end when they leave the forest. A typical rake-picking day looks something like this:
- A sweaty, satisfying few hours out among the bushes
- A dip in a lake or shower once you’re home
- Clean clothes, a refreshed mind and body, maybe a quick nap and something to eat
- Settling outside with the buckets to pick out leaves and needles by hand
That sorting step sounds tedious, but plenty of pickers genuinely love it. It’s slow, easy and detail-focused work, and after the physical effort of the forest, it becomes its own kind of meditative wind-down.
What is berry-picking, if not just picking berries?
Beyond the berries themselves, picking blueberries is something of a wellbeing ritual. A few reasons it resonates so widely:
- Time spent in the forest is well documented to be good for mental and physical health
- Squatting at bush level and constantly shifting position is great exercise for the body!
- It works just as well solo (peace and quiet) as it does with a friend, picking side by side within earshot
- It’s a natural, screen-free way to catch up with someone
- Kids often come along too, and there are even smaller berry rakes made just for them
A blueberry trip is rarely just about the berries for the youngest pickers. Along the way, they sometimes discover a frog, a puddle, an unreasonably excellent stick, and, more often than not, they get purple-stained fingers and mouths (most berries never make it to the bucket, and that’s fine). It all adds up to the kind of small, sensory memory that tends to stick, and a growing connection to the outdoors that starts early. And while kids are busy eating berries straight off the bush, it’s also worth knowing blueberries are doing some quiet, serious work nutritionally: they’re rich in vitamins A, B, and C, along with fibre, magnesium, and calcium.
The one real rule of the forest
There’s essentially only one way to get blueberry picking wrong — and it has nothing to do with technique.
Don’t leave anything behind. No litter, no mess, no damaged trees or other harm done to nature.
Thankfully, this is second nature to most people. Walk through a patch after someone’s been there, and you’d likely never know — unless you look closely at the bushes themselves and notice the berries are simply… gone.
Want to try guided berry-picking? Join our trip every summer Tuesday in Espoo, Nuuksio, just a stone’s throw from Helsinki. Read more and book your spot!
What to do with the berries?
Sometimes a blueberry trip is a short one, just enough time outdoors to feel good, and a small handful of berries to show for it. Even a modest haul is enough for a glass of blueberry milk or one blueberry pie, to keep or to gift
Other times, it’s an all-day affair: packed lunch, a whole day in the forest, buckets filling steadily.
For the serious pickers, there’s a reason so many Finnish homes have a chest freezer tucked away. Come autumn, it tends to fill up with blueberries, lingonberries, wild game, fish, and berry purées and juices. And if freezer space is limited, there’s always the stovetop option: blueberries make excellent jam or marmalade, no freezing required.
Read more: Finnish Bilberry Pie – A Traditional Nordic Dessert You Need to Try
My own style of blueberry-picking
I grew up under my mother’s tutelage as a casual blueberry-picker: always the finger-picking method, the slower one. Most often this skill surfaces when I’m out in the forest for entirely different reasons than blueberries, because I love wandering my local woods, often scouting out new spots for myself and revisiting familiar, lovely ones. In July and August, these forest walks almost always include at least a short blueberry-eating break, whenever I come across a bush loaded with big berries. Blueberries won’t exactly fill you up, but they give your mouth a lovely taste, some healthy vitamins, and a burst of refreshment, a perfect little pause in the middle of a walk.
Over the years I’ve also noticed that when someone new is coming into my life — a new friend, say — inviting them along to the blueberry forest is about the most natural way to get to know them. While picking berries, conversation tends to flow easily, and the forest and the berries themselves give you an easy opening line, from which it’s simple to move on to deeper topics.
As for larger-scale picking, I’m still too impatient for that, at least for now. I can’t manage hours of squatting in the forest, and cleaning a rake-picked haul doesn’t appeal to me at the moment either. So once a summer, I buy a whole bucket of blueberries from a local lady, and that gives me half a decilitre of berries for my morning porridge all year round, right up until the next harvest season.
Read next
These are 8 delicious berries that Finns pop into their mouths in the wild, and you can do the same
Wild Strawberries – A Tiny Summer Treasure in Finland
A Guide for Nature Enthusiasts: 10+1 Must-Try Experiences for Exploring Finnish Nature
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