A few days ago I commented on a post that The Old Foodie had made about brambling or blackberry picking. I said she was a bit early for that in this hemisphere and that it would be several weeks before we could expect to harvest this most popular of wild forager's fruit.
Well, I was wrong. Blackberry bushes? vines? shrubs? if they were raspberries it would be canes, are extremely variable and I had noticed that this plant, near to the cider house, was particularly early in fruit last year but in the peculiar weather that we've had this year it's surpassed itself and there are many large and fully ripe fruit ready to be picked right now.
Of course, there are still some left because as usual the biggest and ripest were way out of reach or protected by huge vicious stinging nettles but I have picked plenty for a crumble and very pleased about it too!
2 comments:
Haven't you had a particularly cold summer? How come the berries are ready earlier than usual? Whatever the explanation, I hope the crumble was great.
Hi,
No, it's felt colder because of the cloud cover and torrential rains but I don't think the averages are much below expected. In the UK there has been much flooding but we're a little higher here and although we're very wet the water has drained away to lower ground.
I think the berries were just on a particularly early plant for this farm, as I said most of the other, many, brambles are still in flower or with tiny green fruits.
But maybe I'm just going mad, a friend in London has also picked some ripe berries from her allotment - maybe I've never seen blackberries in July because I've never looked!
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