Wild Blackberries

[The Hammer]

Me and the better half went out this afternoon berry picking, and we have come back with a great haul (3kg or so).

This will eventually become a crumble, jam, and maybe a small cobbler.

 

[Quagmire]

Me and the better half went out this afternoon berry picking, and we have come back with a great haul (3kg or so).

View attachment 65868

This will eventually become a crumble, jam, and maybe a small cobbler.

Oh man! One of the things I really miss about the northern west coast is the wild blackberries.

 

[Vinayaka]

Me and the better half went out this afternoon berry picking, and we have come back with a great haul (3kg or so).

View attachment 65868

This will eventually become a crumble, jam, and maybe a small cobbler.

How many scratches did you get? I've only picked blackberries a few times, but I always got beaten up by the bushes. Saskatoons are less abusive.

 

[crossfire]

Those look like Himalayan blackberries (the invasive ones with the nasty stickers and five leaflets,) or are they the native trailing blackberries with three leaflets whose vines are more delicate and stay close to the ground? (Those are the ones I really like.)

 

[The Hammer]

Those look like Himalayan blackberries (the invasive ones with the nasty stickers and five leaflets,) or are they the native trailing blackberries with three leaflets whose vines are more delicate and stay close to the ground? (Those are the ones I really like.)

Pretty sure these are the invasive kind. 5 leafs, lots of thorns. May as well eat as many as you can if they are invasive; less seeds to go around.

 

[The Hammer]

How many scratches did you get? I've only picked blackberries a few times, but I always got beaten up by the bushes. Saskatoons are less abusive.

Haha, I got pretty snagged up a few times. Had my hair get caught in some vines too ugh. Here is a small damage sample.

 

[The Hammer]

Oh man! One of the things I really miss about the northern west coast is the wild blackberries.

It's one of my favorite times of the year up here. I love being able to forage wild foods. I still have 6 pints of dandelion jelly from spring.

 

[sun rise]

We used to have them in our backyard decades ago. I used to go out with a bowl of vanilla ice cream and drop the totally ripe ones into the bowl and pig out.

Years ago our last dog and I used to eat them on a trail we walked on. She was very good at carefully pulling them off the vine without getting stabbed.

This year the drought meant there were only a few tiny ones. Sigh.

 

[Vinayaka]

Haha, I got pretty snagged up a few times. Had my hair get caught in some vines too ugh. Here is a small damage sample.

View attachment 65869

That's nuthin. If it was me, there'd be blood and bandages. We picked saskatoons 6 weeks ago. Second best year I've ever seen, and I'm old. We got at least 8 gallons in about 3 hours. I froze them all, and put a handful on oatmeal every morning. The best I ever saw was a year when my father actually backed the half ton in to the bushes and shook the tree. He had a tarp laid out on the deck, and whoa, that was fast picking.

 

[The Hammer]

Years ago our last dog and I used to eat them on a trail we walked on. She was very good at carefully pulling them off the vine without getting stabbed.

I taught my boy Loki how to eat the berries off the vines too

 

[The Hammer]

How many scratches did you get? I've only picked blackberries a few times, but I always got beaten up by the bushes. Saskatoons are less abusive.

Also, what in heck is a Saskatoon? Where is it native to?

 

[Vinayaka]

Also, what in heck is a Saskatoon? Where is it native to?

Canadian Prairies and northern US mostly, although it goes by a different name in the US. The word 'saskatoon' is Cree I believe. Has incredible nutrition, better than blueberries.

Edited to add link ... Saskatoons and Juneberries - What They Are, Where to Get Them and How to Use Them!

 

[Estro Felino]

I love blackberries. I used to pick them too, when I was a kid in Summer.

 

[Revoltingest]

Blackberry pie is the best pie.
The problem is accumulating enuf berries.
(They often disappear during picking & handling.)

 

[ChristineM]

We were out yesterday morning but alas, the drought has killed off off the blackberries.

But at least we were able to buy some myrtille (blueberries) at this morning's market.

 

[Subduction Zone]

This thread is taking me back to my youth. On the old Grade B dairy farm my dad bought there were quite a few berries. There were a few wild strawberries, but never enough for more than a handful. Black raspberry and red raspberry canes growing wild. Not a lot but if you were persistent you might get enough to make something. Elderberries, never did too much with them. But the absolute best were choke cherries. They were also easy to pick and easy to leave be while picking. The fruit is well named since eating on would instantly dry out your mouth. But when cooked into a jelly or syrup they were phenomenal. We used to take the Ford Jubilee tractor with its front end loader. One or two of us would get in that while another drove us under the trees and then lift us up. OSHA would have had a heart attack.

Our mother would take the cherries and cook them and strain out the pits and stems with cheesecloth. A fair amount of sugar and fruit pectin and it would be jelly. Sometimes. Those cherries did not gel as easily as strawberries or raspberries, so then we would have chokecherry syrup. Fantastic on waffles or pancakes.

 

[Ashoka]

Yummy! This reminds me of the summers I spent with my grandma and my cousins. We'd go swimming and pick elderberries. Good times.

 

[Vinayaka]

This thread is taking me back to my youth. On the old Grade B dairy farm my dad bought there were quite a few berries. There were a few wild strawberries, but never enough for more than a handful. Black raspberry and red raspberry canes growing wild. Not a lot but if you were persistent you might get enough to make something. Elderberries, never did too much with them. But the absolute best were choke cherries. They were also easy to pick and easy to leave be while picking. The fruit is well named since eating on would instantly dry out your mouth. But when cooked into a jelly or syrup they were phenomenal. We used to take the Ford Jubilee tractor with its front end loader. One or two of us would get in that while another drove us under the trees and then lift us up. OSHA would have had a heart attack.

Our mother would take the cherries and cook them and strain out the pits and stems with cheesecloth. A fair amount of sugar and fruit pectin and it would be jelly. Sometimes. Those cherries did not gel as easily as strawberries or raspberries, so then we would have chokecherry syrup. Fantastic on waffles or pancakes.

We never did that with chokecherries, but in these parts some folks tried to make wine out of them, with limited success. Now pin-cherries, that was another matter. They made the best jelly, but only in some years would the bushes be plentiful enough to get a lot. We also had wild strawberries, wild raspberries, 2 varieties of black current in bogs, and what we colloquially called highbush cranberry. My mother was an incredibly patient picker, while Dad would wander about looking for a better bush.

 

[pearl]

We have a wild black raspberry bush in the yard, my daughter loves them, but its a race to beat the birds. These bushes are very thorny, always comes in all scratched up.

 

[Mock Turtle]

A group of us used to go caving on the west coast of Ireland over a number of years, and seemingly at the right time to do some blackberry picking - later turned into crumble - and very much enjoyed by all. I suppose the fact that we had such in our garden in London, along with raspberries, blackcurrant, and gooseberry bushes, gave me some appreciation for such puds, especially since my mum was a very good cook. Came across some wild strawberries in either Austria or Switzerland once - on a little walk with a friend, and where his young daughter (in papoose) seemed to enjoy them too.