Harvest from the Hedgerows: A Tale of Blackberry Picking

Picking Blackberries

We often stop and nibble blackberries from hedgerows when on family walks.  We very rarely have any sort of container with us so we can collect enough to take home.  So this weekend ,with a bumper apple harvest from the garden we made a specific date with our local hedgerows for a spot of blackberry gathering.  There do seem to be a lot of blackberries about the year and the season seems to be going on forever.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that blackberries usually grow where nettles also flourish.  Yes nettles can sting through trousers.  The best and ripest blackberries are also those just out of reach.  A stick or a tall friend can come in very handy.

blackberries

blackberries

Luckily we did find some berries that were low enough for my son to pick.

berry2collage

The hedges are also full of so manyother  berries this time of year.We spotted elderberries, rosehips, the seedheads of  thistles  and sloes.  A century ago whole villages would have foraged for these.  We spent 10 minutes or so suggesting to my son that now he had spotted ‘slowberries’ he would have to look harder to find the ‘fastberries’, before he cottoned onto the joke.

blackberries

While picking we placed our container on the ground.  I can remember childhood blackberry gathering when containers tipped out their contents as somebody stretched to reach a particularly juicy specimen.  And yes, you have guessed it, this time I stepped on the container knocking it over into the grass.  Well at least it wasn’t a nettle bed and we managed to retrieve all of the berries.

Looking forward to our blackberry and apple desserts this week.  Hope you get to have some as well.

I am linking up this post with Countrykids at Coombemill .  Please stop by there to see how other families have been enjoying the outdoors.

 

 

 

 

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