Blackberrying

We used to make a very good blackberry wine. I was telling a friend yesterday that I discovered, in my garage last week, a demijohn of elderberry wine that had come with us when we moved house - thirteen years ago, and we stopped making wine some time before that. I can’t remember why DH didn’t bottle it and thought he had tipped it down the drain, but it seems not, and the removal men, on emptying the last garage merely brought it along and put it in this one where it has stayed since. My friend said I shouldn’t open it and drink some! It is coated with a thick layer of dust like something out of the cellar of an ancient chateau so maybe I should send it to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s! If that doesn’t work, I’ll pour it down the drain😂! I don’t think she had me down as the faint hearted type!

There are enough locally to ferment a whole cellar full of wine

The blackberries around us have been fantastic this year, in one particular very long hedgerow there have been so many it's been easy picking. What has surprised me though is that dh and I seem to be the only ones taking them. Makes us feel like the eccentric old folk of the village! (Oh hang on, I think that's probably been the case for a while...) I like them with greek yoghurt and I've frozen loads of them as well.

I'm on south coast. Just been out to buy some cooking apples to go with the blackberries I picked this morning

We were out yesterday evening picking, and now its jam making today.

BlackBerry and apple pie or crumble with custard - lovely and takes me back to my childhood and my time as a young Mum. I can’t remember the last time I made a pie as DH is type 2 diabetic and suffers from acid reflux and pastry is a no no for him.

GrandMattie, I don't like them either! Mum's bramble jelly was lovely, I'm assured by recipients of it, but I never ate it.
That didn't get me out of picking the blooming things when I was younger

Mattie there used to be a largish damson tree in a hedgerow bordering the main road here but the council chopped it down. I suppose all the fallen fruit constituted a pedestrian hazard. Shame though; it would have been dripping about now.

DH loved them, but I must be the only person in the world who doesn’t like blackberries.
greyduster, if you can get them, damsons make a good substitute for sloes in gin.

I've been picking some beauties so sweet and full of juice. I have them on a merginue nest with some fresh cream.....delicious 😋 👌

The blackberries have ripened early here in South Yorkshire. We picked 2.5kg this week and made 12 jars of jam. We usually pick them in September.

I used to make sloe gin every year but there haven’t been any decent sloes for a long time in our lanes. There’s some evidence that this year might be different, but in the meantime I’m relying on SipSmith!

I’m north west. Blackberries usually end August into September. They’re early here

DIL makes sloe gin 🙂

I usually pick lbs of blackberries every year to mix with the apples from the garden of the house we have just sold. Currently we are sofa surfing at daughters until we take possession of our new home in three weeks time - even then we will be camping there for a few months while work is done.

However, this will not stop me looking for blackberries in my new location. I wan tjust enough to make blackberry gin for Christmas. A couple of lbs will make three bottles.

I usually make sloe gin, but have yet to see any sloes in my new locality.

A propos of nothing, years ago when we lived in Belgium, on a walk we came across a patch of the biggest blackberries we had ever seen - they were almost the size of golf balls. But covered in dust from a nearby cement works, so completely useless. Even after washing you couldn’t have risked eating them. The irony was, so we were told by a local resident, that during the war, the occupying Germans fitted filters in the factory to stop it belching all this stuff all over the local countryside and after the war, the Belgians removed them because the Germans had fitted them and never replaced them with anything else.

I think I’ll head out to my secret brambling spot tomorrow. Though I confess I’m of the same ilk as Pantglas’s husband and we’ll be lucky if many survive the walk home.

We’ve loads in the allotment and garden though. They’re ready early this year, so I’d best get them picked.

Cat park Should read car park

We have a lot of brambles with blackberries on them just outside our garden fence. Also our local Sainsburys has some on the outer reaches of their cat park, they need to get bigger. Blackberries have a wonderful affinity with apples.

@lixy There are so many this year in the wild but gardens seem to have suffered more from the hot weather. Good luck with your foraging, there are plenty of hazelnuts and wild plums too.

Smintie

I repurposed my grabber, like a litter picker, (after my hip replacement) into a blackberry picking tool.

It is very successful at grabbing high or nettle protected bramble covered branches. Highly recommended tool.

Great idea Smintie!

Blackberries are in full swing here in Bedfordshire. The hedgerows are full of ripe juicy ones. The thornless plant in the garden still has small green ones though so I’m hoping they’ll be along later.

I repurposed my grabber, like a litter picker, (after my hip replacement) into a blackberry picking tool.

It is very successful at grabbing high or nettle protected bramble covered branches. Highly recommended tool.

I am devastated this year - they came early here and I’ve missed the best ones as I haven’t a freezer until next Thursday. I always like to have enough to see me through the winter for puddings, but I don’t think it will happen. I’ll have to rely on an over abundance of plums!

I ve been picking them for about 10 days now
I too am living off rhubarb crumble and now blackberry crumble

I do all sorts with them, today we had porridge for breakfast topped with stewed apple and blackberries.