Harvest calendar
Picking & everyone's rights
Wild berries may be picked under everyone's rights almost everywhere – without the landowner's permission. Well-picked and well-handled berries also keep best.
How to pick good berries
- Pick only in clean places: keep at least 50 metres from roads, industrial and residential areas, cultivations and yards. Do not pick within sight of homes.
- Use clean, intact buckets, berry pickers and transport boxes suitable for food use.
- Pick with clean hands and in dry weather – dry-surfaced berries are easy to clean of debris and keep best.
- Pick only ripe, clean and intact berries.
- Take only the berries and do not damage the plants.
- Avoid pouring berries from one container to another – they crush easily.
- Keep picked berries cool and process them as soon as possible.
Everyone's rights for the berry picker
Berries growing in the wild may be picked under everyone's rights, i.e. without the landowner's permission, apart from certain species and areas protected by the Nature Conservation Act. You may not enter yards, and berries may not be picked from plantations or cultivated fields. If you gather for sale or in large quantities, it is good practice to ask the landowner's permission.
Under everyone's rights you may
- move about on foot, on skis and by bicycle in nature and stay there temporarily
- gather wild berries, mushrooms and unprotected herbaceous plants
- gather juniper berries
- collect bracket fungi if they come off without damaging the tree or stump
- take fallen needles, leaves, bark, twigs and cones from the ground
Under everyone's rights you may not
- walk or gather anything in yards, plantations or cultivated fields
- gather plants in nature reserves or national parks
- fell or damage living or dead trees
- collect parts of trees, such as buds, leaves, spruce tips, sprigs, bark, chaga, cones or nuts, or tap sap
- take dried or fallen wood, logging residue, moss, lichen or twigs
- make an open fire on another's land, litter, or drive a motor vehicle off-road
More on everyone's rights: luontoon.fi/jokaisenoikeudet
Source: Luonnonmarjat tutuiksi guide (Marttaliitto ry & Arktiset Aromit ry); luontoon.fi.
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