It's Gonna Be A Great Year For Blackberries!

Sunday evening, on the walk home from dinner at Mom & Dad's we ate dessert:

These are the first of our local wild blackberries this year! Three weeks of sunshine after a mild winter and very wet spring, we are going to have a bumper crop of blackberries this year! Hope the dry weather holds!

These a few of the berries we picked last night. They are bigger than the tip of my thumb! Bigger than a quarter!

Dressed in heavy jeans, armed with my "come-hither", the pruning shears and buckets, we picked over 5 pounds in less than an hour, and that included the walking time there and back!

What's a "come-hither"?

A "come-hither" is an invaluable blackberry picking tool. Version 1.0 was a wire coat hanger from the dry cleaners that had paper dowel as the bottom rung. I removed the paper dowel, and duck taped it to the wire arms that had been folded together, so that the hook was at the top of the stick. This one was dubbed the 'spider stick' as it was used to clear the spiderwebs that blocked access to the juiciest of the berries. (Spiders are pretty smart! They know the bugs will be after the berries as soon as they ripen!)

Version 1.1 is a long wooden dowel with a large cup-hook screwed into the end of it. Much sturdier, a bit longer but still lightweight. Helps to clear spider webs, lift thorny branches and pull down those big clumps of berries that stay just out of fingertip reach!

You've heard the saying "If your knees are not green by the end of the day, you haven't spent enough time in the garden"? Well, I'm paraphrasing it to "If you don't have seeds in-between your molars, fingertips are not purpley, your hands and arms not itchy and scratched, then you haven't spent enough time in the brambles!

Wild Blackberries Season Is Here!

One of my most favorite things about late summer, next to the arrival of the beautiful new brown velvet cattails among the reeds in the wetlands, is the ripening of the wild blackberries!

I think I'll have a little bit of oatmeal with my bowl of blackberrries!

It is a great wonder that those thorny brambles, the bane of gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, produce such juicy, delicious fruit--all free for the effort of picking them!

Last week, Brent and I took an evening walk just before dinner and picked a half gallon meandering along our once around the block stroll. The next morning I stopped at a couple of spots along the road on my way back from taking Brent to work in Lynden and picked another half gallon in less than half an hour!

After I got them home, I gave them a quick rinse in the colander and put them into the freezer. This gallon ziploc baggie goes to the first sister to visit and claim them for jam! Someone from the Methow Valley, perhaps? :-)