Looks like a good blackberry year

It is a good year.
I always associate blackberry picking with September, slightly misty mornings and my friends and I used to go after the children had gone back to school after the summer break.
My D picked lots last weekend and is experimenting with blackberry gin.

We still have some from last year’s bounty. Perhaps some compote to freeze might be a better idea this year.
Surely it is rather early?

I think it’s very early too I suppose all the sunny weather earlier in the year helped.

Ours in the woods are definitely starting to bloom but nowhere near ready for picking

Please leave some for me ladies! I’m in Spain and won’t be back til mid September- blackberry & apple is the last jam I make and my preserves cupboard would look empty without some!

Ours are just starting to ripen. Not ready yet though and neither are the apples.

Lots of berries and it looks like it will be a good year.

Yes and me! I’ve frozen the first lot of pickings waiting for this years Bramleys

I too am looking forward to bumper crops this year - the lanes are full of them, but nowhere near ready to pick yet. I’ve promised GS they’ll be ready for when he comes back from holiday, so that we can go and pick them! He’s now at that age when it will probably be the last time he wants to go!

Not ready in the country lanes here either ( and I keep an eye on them all the time)?
Our Bramleys not ready either, if you pick too early you have to add sugar.

Not ready up north yet. Mostly still green.

They’re ripe here in London.

Blackberry and apple crumble .... mmmm

My old mum would have been baking past herself with the blackberry and apple pies and jams. Apple trees were up the garden--crisp, full of juice and as sour as can be but the flavour has never ever been matched.

Apple pie and home-made cream cheese was a favourite too

Being in the North it was always September that we went picking the blackberries ( and eating them, grubs and all probably )

I made 5 pots of apple and blackberry jam, I’ll go back to the same place in a couple of days for more. No one else seems to be picking in the spot I found 5 mins from the house I’m very careful to only pick the higher berries just in case ? ?

The cultivated blackberries ripen earlier and we have had a lot this year. I say cultivated but they were wild ones which DH has tended over the years.

I've frozen lots, made blackberry jam, bramble jelly and blackberry coulis. We do like blackberry and apple pie and crumble but I trying to avoid puds at the moment.

Yes, D H picked three punnets full at the weekend. They are big, sweet and juicy yet nobody else seems to be picking them. Because DH is Type 2 diabetic we don’t make jam so we freeze the ones we don’t eat, as berries are the best fruit for diabetics.

Checked at the weekend and here (Central Scotland) the brambles have a long way to go before they are ready to pick.
We did manage to pick some yummy raspberries though. ?

There were a few black ones on my walk yesterday. I'm taking a container when I go tomorrow! Even a couple of jars of jam would be nice. Love blackberry jam. Mmmmm

I ve had two blackberry crumbles So far from the hedgerow they seem very early but I m not complaining

I made blackberry jam last year nice but quite dense so this year I added scrumped apples and the jam was lovely a cross between jam and jelly.

Plenty on the bushes here but nowhere ready for picking yet. And after todays high winds and torrential rain, they'll have taken a battering so I hope they've survived.

I picked enough for one jar of jam yesterday. It looks gorgeous. Can't wait to try it! My favourite jam, although black currant is a close second.

Picked a kilo today. The bushes are heaving.

It's a bit of a faff cooking blackberries and straining the juice but I do prefer bramble jelly to blackberry jam.

Blackcurrant jelly is delicious too, it tastes a bit stronger.

I was thinking that today and yesterday! I have not been going beyond my garden gate so I don't see many people. I do see people when working at the kitchen sink as the window looks out on to a well used footpath. Several people have stopped to pick and eat brambles from the edge of the path, more than I ever saw do so when I was out and about.
Either the brambles are better or people are keener on wild food.