For many people in the New Glarus area, the arrival of black raspberry season is as much a sign of summer as fireworks, haymaking and backyard cookouts.

Right about now, patches of wild black raspberries are beginning to ripen across Green County, transforming woodland edges, fence lines and brushy hillsides into some of nature's most rewarding foraging spots. The season is brief, often peaking around the Fourth of July, which makes the berries all the more treasured by those who know where to find them.

Unlike blackberries, black raspberries are native to Wisconsin. Long before the first Swiss immigrants arrived in New Glarus in 1845, these berries grew across the region's woodlands, prairie edges and stream corridors. It is likely that black raspberries were among the wild foods encountered by the colony's earliest settlers as they adapted to their new home in southern Wisconsin.

Today, black raspberries remain one of the most beloved wild fruits in the area. They thrive in sunny locations where woods meet open land, including old fence rows, abandoned pastures, trails, roadsides and the edges of forests. Their ability to spread through birds, wildlife and arching canes that root themselves into the ground has made them a familiar part of the rural landscape.