Blackberry Huntin’ Season
August 31st, 2012 | Photo Galleries, Wildlife, berries, bike, blackberry, brambling, foraging, wild
It’s blackberry season and the berries are full, sweet and ripe! I am not gonna mention the name of my favorite spot to harvest these wild delights, but many of you may recognize the spot from the photos. Such a beautiful place to forage for berries — just look at the size of that blackberry patch! It goes on forever.
One of the images shows a path through the patch and another shows the incredible amounts of berries that I wished I could reach. Another images shows the best transportation for brambling — a bike! See the huge patch behind the bike 🙂 Ohhh yeah.
I have a tendency to wear flip-flops, shorts and tank tops when brambling, perhaps it is pure foolishness, perhaps it is because the brambles are a little blood-thristy and appreciate being repaid for their sweetness with a little pain — such is the nature of nature.
I also found a lovely rosebush with the fat, juicy hips. Rose-hips are incredibly full of vitamin C, you can see one of my buckets of berries includes these hips.
One of my favorite things to do with blackberries is to make it into a honey-syrup and add it into my kombucha (I’ll post the recipe shortly). Of course blackberry pie, jam, ice-cream and cobbler are also favorite recipes.
Here’s a couple older posts with more information about the delights of brambling and blackberry eatin’
Yay for blackberries! Three of us picked over 13 kilograms in a little over two house yesterday.
Rather than come up with things to do with them before they get mouldy, I steam-juice them in gallon jugs, which then seal and can be stored at room temperature. Together with prior pickings, we now have SEVEN GALLONS of blackberry juice!
We then run the pulp through a Roma food mill, separating the seeds. The seedless pulp goes into the freezer for use in ice cream, cobbler, crumble, etc.
The best part is the seeds: they go to the goats, who then end up with purple lipstick!
Nothing gets wasted. Except when we made some blackberry/apple cider one year, then WE got wasted!