Thimbleberry harvesting?

Hey all, a couple years ago I started a little row of thimbleberries from seed I collected in state and local parks around me. Now they're big enough to think about the harvest.

When the fruit starts forming, they're hard. Until they're ripe, they're hard to get free from the sepals. Then they ripen for some (incredibly short?) period. When they get slightly old, they fall off the torus to the ground. I'm trying to figure out when to harvest, how to visually/tactilely ascertain readiness, and other best-practices surrounding their cultivation and harvest. Who does this and what have you learned?

I really like thimbleberries. Around here they have a harvest window of about three weeks in July. During that time they release easily from the plant.

One thing that's different is the way I approach the harvest. Previously, sometimes I was out for a hike during thimbleberry season and whatever I got was serendipity -- certainly can't complain. But now they're taking up space on my land and I want to figure out how to maximize my haul.

I can certainly see why they're called thimbleberries!

It sounds like they make attractive landscping with the ornamental foliage and flowers too.

I found nativeplantsnw blog which says

Some tribes collected unripe berries and stored them in baskets or cedar-bark bags until ripe

So it sounds like it may be worth gathering the berries even when slightly underripe. I guess this may need some experimentation though.

Lots of other uses listed too, from making baskets to toilet paper!

Toilet paper is the one I see everywhere that they write about the plant. :-) It's so nice to have a bramble without thorns and the leaves are great big!