When Do Salmon Berries Ripen?

Berries

• Salmonberries are varying shades of orange, from a light yellow-tinged orange to a dark orange shot through with red. Salmonberries resemble orange blackberries or Marion berries in size and shape, though they are quite distinct in taste. Ripe salmonberries are orange, though the shade of orange does not necessarily demonstrate how ripe the berry is.

Firmness

• Salmonberries grow on the vine, increasing in size until maturity. A mature salmonberry is about 1 inch in height. Ripe salmonberries should slide off the plant with almost no resistance; if you have to tug, the berry is not ripe.

Taste

• Salmonberries have a crisp and distinctive taste quite different from more common berries that grow in the same environment, such as the later-blooming blueberries, huckleberries and blackberries. A ripe salmonberry has a crisp and slightly tart taste, mild compared to other berries. Unripe salmonberries taste sour.

Flowers

• Salmonberries flower in early spring (later in Alaska), producing small pink flowers. As the flowers fall off in late spring, the berries begin to form. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that salmonberries are among the first berry bushes to flower and ripen in the northwestern part of the United States, maturing in the last weeks of June and the first weeks of July, though harvest times are pushed into August the farther north the plants grow.