Swamp land, Big Lake: Great spruce tips. Currants have had small berries for about a week. Beautiful white flowers (like dogwood) appearing. Lots of flowers or buds for berry plants; highbush cranberry, rose, raspberry, elderberry.
May 2
Swamp land, Big Lake: Red currants flowering all over. Lots of fiddleheads and mushrooms available all over the Valley.
April 29
Swamp land, Big Lake: Early blueberry flowering. Fiddlehead ferns are ready. Birch greened up a week or so ago, and lots of currant plants are nicely leafing out.
June 28
Swamp land, Big Lake: Picked ripe red currants. Enough are red now to be worth it! Many are still green or just about ripe.
October 18
Swamp land, Big Lake: Picked quite a few lowbush cranberries in dry meadow areas. People are picking crabapples in Anchorage and other areas.
October 4
Swamp land, Big Lake: Probably the last time I’m going to pick a bunch of red currants this year. I still can’t resist the perfectly good racemes, but some clusters are getting brown or slimy so they’re all about done.
September 22
Swamp land, Big Lake: Did some more late currant hunting. Picked lots of red currants. Many or most of the plant leaves have dropped off but there are still great bunches of tasty squishy berries hanging everywhere, good for using immediately in recipes.
August 17
Swamp land, Big Lake: Picked lots of perfect early blueberries in select spots.
Aug 15
North Shore, Big Lake: Picked lots of perfect bog blueberries! Also snacked on low bush cranberries while picking.
August 5
Swamp land, Big Lake: Tried to pick every kind of berry around. Picked tons of wild raspberries. Also picked quite a few red currants and very ripe watermelon berries (almost too squishy to get.) Picked many perfect trailing black currants from one spot. Picked a few ripe crowberries, cloudberries, and rosehips here and there. Snacked on ripe timberberries. Lowbush cranberries are large and green and highbush are turning red. Huge, interesting mushrooms are everywhere as well as a ton of mourning cloak caterpillars in feeding frenzies.
Alaska Berry Bog 