I've picked about two gallons as of this morning. Kinda hard work, all that bending over and fighting the wasps for the 'berries, feel like a messican after I'm through. I hit it right after sunrise to beat the heat and the insects.

I hope to.

I brew blackberry mead!

Yummy

Won’t be ripe here until another month.

I'm interested - how do you make the mead and how much blackberries do you use (quarts?)?

Still green here,

I'll get a few but I ain't gonna swim through chiggers. I've got some easy ones next to a couple of powerline poles, I can drive the jeep right up beside and pick. 😄

If I get a quart, that will be a 'one and done' trip.

A few red ones here. More than I’ve had so far. Trying to get them to produce better. Interested in the mead too. Been making straight blkberry wine.

We have about three weeks before they are ready. The rule at the house is, I get a cobbler if I’m willing to pick them. I get a cobbler or two every year.

I just ripped out a huge blackberry patch.

Fuggin’ things are worse than kudzu.

Never seen a blackberry.

Wonder if they would grow here?

Over this way there ain’t many places they won’t grow. Thorny sonofabitch takes over quick.

I think they have them on the west side.


Might should look into this.



They sound like a weed!

They can climb like an ivy. Long shoots that can get bigger around than your thumb. Lots of big thorns.

I had them climbing 15+ feet over some cedars.

Berries can be uber sweet but pack a schit ton of tiny seeds. I often strain them if I make jam. Otherwise your picking your teeth for hours.

Are they the ones that look like dark raspberries?

Them thar aliens love berries.

Big purplish black berry.

When ripe, much sweeter than a raspberry.

Ours out here are called Himalayan blackberries.

Not sure what other kinds there are or if they cause as much blood loss.

A delicious, Tick, Chigger, and snake filled weed! I think blackberry brambles would grow on the moon. I’ve seen them survive fire, flood, freeze, and drought and keep on trucking. Most every old homestead around here has a bramble out behind the barn, some where a house hasn’t stood in 75 years.

I have a big patch in an abandoned railroad bed down south of town that I guess nobody else knows about. Can’t see it from the road and I’ve never seen another soul there, not so much as a tire track even. It’s probably 3 acres or so and we usually get a few gallons off of it. Another two weeks or so and they’ll be about ready, berries are huge this year with all the rain.

We make lots of jam and cobbler with them. I like to put sugar over a bowl full and leave them in the fridge overnight, the next day ladle the berries and syrup over some vanilla ice cream.

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I like to snack on them on my way to the mail box but I'd be happy if I never saw another Black Berry bush

Eraser AND 2 4 D (combined) solves the problem. Period.

Alien Kudzu is a plant-like, fungus-like, or otherwise predominantly sessile alien life form that infests a planet's environment and begins reproducing itself rapidly. It is used in Terra forming planets.

Man! Youse guys are a downer.


Schit....a plant that grows every year and makes us nice berries to eat.......gawd! Terrible!

Interestingly, I've never encountered a snake in over 15 years. My nemesis is the yellow jacket nest lurking next to the Biggest Blackberry in the patch

Jim if you can get them to grow up there plant a variety called “Triple Crown”. Thornless and berries bigger than the end of your thumb. I got 6 starts from my grandpa and in 2 years I was picking a gallon a night for several weeks.

Blackberries grow the cane in year one. Produce the berries in year 2 and that cane is then dead. While it’s producing berries in year 2, new canes are being grown that will have berries the next year.

Pies, cobblers, or mushed up with a splash of sugar to use as an ice cream topper. Love blackberries. Also wild black raspberries. The best jelly in the world. Almost a toss up between the two.

My berries are just coming out of their bloom. Can’t wait.

Katy was my berry picking helper. She’d eat the ripe ones off the vine. Once in a while a “yip” indicated a thorn got her tongue. RIP.

Pictured are wild thorny ones. The tame ones I keep I drive t posts down a row and string wire between for them to climb on.

My boy inspecting one.

That's great, passing on the tradition of picking blackberries

If it is wet the mosquitoes will carry you away or drain all your blood.

Ha! Thanks Cheesy!

We have blackberries that grow on the edges of the yard and in every other random spot. Cant get rid of the damn things. Pull them up and they come up twice as much. But we will pick at least a couple bowl fulls to have with ice cream.

Must admit that while trout fishing a bush full of blackcaps by a hole in a trout stream makes for a great morning.

Blackberry cobbler is excellent.

When i was a kid, they grew right next to our house. Everyone in the neighborhood picked off that tangle, and we all got as many as we needed or wanted. Man, the rabbits used to love to hunker in those patches. Dad would send the beagles in there, and we'd often have at least two rabbits come blasting out of there. We learned not to shoot them until they cleared the patch. The dogs would go in there to chase 'em, but had no interest in going back in there for a retrieve. Beagles are about as stubborn as they are dumb!

They are a noxious weed here in southeastern Oz. They can become massive impassable thickets if let go.

They do make good cover for birds, and for rabbits, and tend to be good places to scout around when hunting. Foxes can be found around them too - they are there for the bunnies and birds, but they'll also happily scoff down the berries, as will pigs, who'll also root them up and take cover and shelter in them. Deer here will use them for cover and eat the leaves too - particularly browsing species like Sambar.

I don't mind a hatful of them in season either.

We hunted cotton tails the blackberry patches. It was a great place for the rabbits to hide.

We dont fool with blackberries that much, we usually pick the dew berries. This year, the dew berries didn't make very well. We had a late freeze and that might have been what caused it.

On a high note, a friend has some kind of dew berry that makes berries almost as big as your thumb. I dug up 4 plants Sat. and put them out on my place.

Banner year here for dewberries

I grown tame blackberries, and we sell them. The grandkids help pick them, and we either sell to neighbors, or at the local produce auction. Last year, they sold about $500 worth. It was my intentions to plant another row this year, and I started the plants to do so, but have since just about changed my mind, as I don't know that I want to fool with them. Mine are about 2 weeks away from being ripe.

Blackberry mead....

I use 1 pound of berrys and 1 pound of honey per gallon.

Heat honey water to near boil use a boat motor mixer.

Let cool to under 145 degrees....so pectin in Berry doesn't set. Put previously frozen berries in the hot " over" 130 degree liquid.
I put the berries in a Muslim bag, by freezing them thejuice will leach out with out mixing.

Let cool to under 80 degrees....pitch yeast. My favorite is a Belgium ale/ lambic type yeast. Lot less floculent than English ale or champagne yeast.

Rack twice. I like to pastureize it I've it in a water bath of 140 degrees.

The longer it sits the better it gets if she don't mold or kamboocha out

It will be hucks for us, as usual. Last year was stellar.

Too early for blackberries here. Just starting to bloom. My bees are liking them though.

Wife, mom, sis, and wifes sis' are, and muscadines too, there will be plenty more blackberry and muscadine wine to drink this fall and winter, and maybe a little homemade jam from both too.

Be a while for blackberries here. The mulberry trees in the yard are ramping up, though...…….week or two.

Let me know when the pickled jalapenos bloom...

LOL, sure will, we need to enjoy some of that on another hunt!

Mulberries are ripe around here. I don’t care for them, not tart enough. Mockingbirds love them and anywhere a bird can perch around her has a mulberry sapling sprouting underneath.

I found a white mulberry tree today next to my jobsite. I’d never had any so tried one, very bland.

My favorite wild jelly making fruit is sand plums. Lots of little green ones on the thorny rascals, hopefully they’ll make this year.

Birds also feast on them and paint your car and all the clean washing on the clothesline purple. They perch on the fence and squirt the seeds out there too, and if you don't pull the seedlings out they soon grow up and start damaging the fence. They are hard to get rid of too. I've been trying to kill one for a while - tried glyphosate on the leaves, tried cutting it off to a stump at ground level and painting the cuts with glyphosate, drilling holes and pouring glyphosate in, drilling holes and pouring petrol in, drilling holes and pouring tree killer in. Nothing seems to work on the bloody thing.

planted a thornless one here at the house this spring.

You know what? I used to pick 10-12 gallons every spring... sweat, heat, ticks, snakes and chiggers made me quit in favor of buying a big bag of frozen ones at WMT for $1.87... Nope... I can't pick them that cheap...

Not yet. Strawberries are about done. Sour cherries are beginning, as are blueberries. Wild berries around here are not much good.

I planted two varieties, Arapaho and Chester, both thornless. Arapahos are earlier, Chesters a bit better. We usually end up throwing some frozen ones out or giving them to a neighbor, but now the picker woman wants a wine making kit for her birthday.

I till, plant trees, prune, grow seedlings, mow, and build fences. She chops weeds, waters, and picks. Good system, for me anyway.

Ripping them out won't get rid of them. They just keep coming up. I decided to remove an old patch so I cut them all down with a hedge trimmer and burned all the canes right on the patch. It was quite a fire and it got everything burned down to the bare earth. It all came back up so I have a "new berry patch " now. One way we use them is to make blackberry cordial. We fill a large mason jar with ripe blackberries add some sugar and fill the jar with cheap vodka then put a cover on it. We let it season for 8 weeks turning it over every week. When it is done it is really nice and smooth. Wish I had originally planted the thorn less varieties. The canes grow to over 8 feet and reach out and grab you especially when mowing past the patch. I swear the canes reach out and actually move or so it seems. LOL

Absolutely ^^^^^^

Got a couple or three big mulberry trees in my yard in what used to be a fence line. They're a berry of last resort, kinda slimy. Help keep the birds busy and out of my good stuff. Also have a bunch of black cherries, the kind that kills cows when they eat the branches. I like those as a snack while mowing, but there's not enough meat on them for much else. They also have black knot all over them which makes growing some fruits, especially plums, pretty much impossible.

I have a mulberry tree in my orchard and the birds love them and generally leave everything else alone when they are ripe. I think they are pretty tasty and the grandkids love them. I leave a step ladder out under the tree when they turn black and the kids scarf them up. They are very prolific and fruit for well over a month.

planted some thorn less last year and getting a big handful of thumb sized everday right now

I got right at 6 gal before the county came and cut the ditches.I take them to mom and she makes jelly with them,I have about 2 1/2 gal or blue berries picked now I hope the rain will kick them off soon.Mom also makes mayhaw jelly when we can find the berries. I started picking the black berries with a grabber, it takes a lil practice but it sure saves your back.

Just got back from picking a few from my small patch. Going to explode ripening here in a few. Love making wine with them and they are great in Saturday morn waffles.

Hell it just stopped snowing last week...

lat year was one of the best crops of we've had here.....havent been back this summer to go check, but hoping it will be a good harvest.....they tend to peak around late June on my place.

will probably go spend a day gathering if the are loaded up heavy this year.
Pie porn:

WOW does that look good

Yummy!

Great idea. I'm going out tomorrow morning one last time and I'll set a quart jars worth aside and get some vodka Monday.

Ive spent two years pouring Round-up and every other herbicide known to man trying to kill the sunsabitches, horrible nasty thing they are, at first I thought it was cool having black berries and grapes growing, now I now better!

Turkeys pick the ripe ones on a daily or more often basis here.

I picked a full gallon this morning: unseasonably cool for this time of year. I left a lot on the bushes because I didn't have another ziplock bag, I'll go pick more Wednesday. Two deer came out of the woods and were snort-wheezing at me from about 50 yards, I think I was in their blackberry patch.

I bought some cheap vodka, some pure cane sugar, and some quart mason jars and I'm doing the blackberry cordial as recommended above.

I usually end up bleeding when picking blackberries but that doesn't stop me.

21 pints today. 19 pints 2 weeks ago. That should last until next year.

Winner!! That's how you do it!!

My blackberry cordial will be done soon (in the jar since June 10). I'm shopping at the local antique stores for a nice old decanter.

Had two pies and a batch of blackberry dumplings lately. And some of cheesy's jelly