to be saddened by "don't be disgusting, if you want blackberries we'll get them from the supermarket"?

[create]

We spent a good part of yesterday afternoon blackberrying as a family. It was lovely. DCs ate more fruit than they would normally eat in a week, we chatted about nothing / really important stuff all afternoon, whole family returned totally relaxed, we had blackberries and ice cream for tea and have enough in the freezer to keep us in crumbles all winter.

But, while we were out there was a young girls c. 4yo with her grandparents. She wanted to pick and try the fruit like my Dcs were doing. Her grandmother told here "Don't be disgusting, if you want blackberries we'll get some from Tescos". Why in the world would she think chemical laden soft fruit from the supermarket was less disgusting than wild fruit and deprive her GD such a wonderful simple pleasure? It was said in a voice designed for us to hear too, which I thought was a nice touch, but I suppose at least she had taken the little girl out into the countryside

We are lucky enough to have them growing at the bottom of our garden and I let the kids pick them and eat them without washing them, straight from the bush, whenever they want. Why not? It is a blessing to have wild fruit growing nearby.

I've observed many a tourist this week picking them from a bush at the side of the road (little quiet country village road, but still) and at dog-piss level. 200 yards up the foothpath there's tons of the bloody things, clean and more likely piss-free.

I can guarantee there's not a single ripe one left in the hedge of the paddock, my horse had purple lips last night.

my kids love to pick them,often go off and come back with loads,they make smoothies with them or just wash them and sit out in front garden eating them cue blackberrie fights and alot of purple kids & clothes!lol

People like that leave more blackberries for us.

We have a dog who loves to pee on a bush maybe that influences dp.

Really sad, isn't it? Made me think of that Jamie Oliver programme where they showed schoolkids various vegetables and they were struggling to name any of them.

We have brambles in the garden, several children had purple faces after my DDs showed them the way at a recent BBQ :)

I didn't know you could get them in the supermarket...

Why would you when they grow abundantly - EVERYWHERE?

Much more fun to PYO. And one of the very few things in life which are free!

OOh Summer. What do you do with the sloes? There were loads today, but I've only heard of sloe gin and I want make food from them!

The balckberries are a bit sharp to eat on their own, but the Dcs don't seem to notice/mind. They were truly delicious with a decent vanilla ice cream though.

I've never heard the fruit refered to as brambles. Here that's the bush/prickly bit. e.g in DS2's words "when birds perch on brambles, does it hurt their feet? "

How stupid! They are so expensive to buy and they are free and in abundance all over the hedges. How did we get to the point that we trust supermarkets to provide our food, more than we trust our own abilities and common sense.

More for us!! I bloody love brambles.....yum!

We had people staying at our farm when we were young who didn't realise that the milk they bought at the supermarket came from cows,,,,,,,seriously......actual adults....

When I was a child, my friends weren't allowed to pick blackberries either. As far as I could tell, it was because their parents didn't credit their children with enough intelligence to distinguish blackberries and poisonous berries.

I remember a lot of "but how do you know blackberries aren't poisonous? how do you know they're ripe?"

Yes, twinkly, you never pick from below eye leve!

My dc are trained never to pick below adult knee-level, and I've shown them the places where the lamp-posts are discoloured from dog-pee, drum the lesson home.

It saddens me the number of times we've walked home from school with other families, and when my dc start picking the bramble berries the other parents won't let their dc join in, or, almost as bad, let their dc pick but ban them from tasting until they've got home and washed.

I don't create but I wonder if dp worries that we have not stuck to that rule. Although he will also not eat any fruit or veg grown in the garden or our plot either.

We went blackberry picking the other day. I made 4 jars of jam then went back the next day and got enough for a crumble! Blackberries are so expensive fo hardly any in tesco why not get them for free :)

YANBU - my friend is exactly like this. I was telling her on Sunday that DS and I are going blackberry picking next week. When DS was little last year, me and OH took him out one afternoon and picked some. It was lovely :)

She looked at me all gone out and said it was a really 'trampy' thing to do. I asked her where exactly does she think the fruit comes from, she said her Mum!?!?

I told her she was being a dick.

We are also spending the greater part of each dog walk chomping our way through blackberries. Although I mostly don't have a problem getting her to eat fruit or veg, my dd can be a bit funny about some things (I think it's a texture thing). Tomatoes, for instance. Food of the devil, apparently, unless she picks them herself from the garden in which case she can't eat enough of them and will happily wander round munching on them like apples. Hooray for pick-it-yourself stuff!

create... I think what we call sloes are different to what you call sloes. The sloes I used pick as a child are related to blueberries and are officially called wild fraochan or bilberries. I have no idea why my mother and everyone she knows calls them sloes!

Blackberries are ripe already?

[plans trip up top of Streatham Common this week]

I remember taking kids from a deprived East London estate on camping trips to Wales and how not only were they terrified I'd poison myself eating blackberries, half didn't know what they were at all. And how precious they were about their clothes!

What gets me is PYO farms charging more to PYO than to buy ready-picked produce! Surely people don't eat that much as they go?
Especially after a few summers of being ordered down the blueberry farm to pick a bushel to take home and then I could pick for payment...

Ohhh, are the blackberries out? We are very lucky to have a beautiful view over Kinsale bay where we pick our berries. Its a lovely day out and I'm always amazed I don't see more people do it. All the more for me!

Blimey! I hardly buy any fruit between now and the end of October!

Oh lord, SIL is like this. When I have DN over holidays we go for walks and the only way I get her to walk more than 50 yards without moaning is to find raspberries, strawberries, plums etc in hedgerows. When her Mum joins us she can't eat anything without anguished shrieks of 'you can't eat that without washing it first, throw it away,'

Yes it is sad-although I would have thought that lots of people don´t live within easy access to blackberry pick tbh.

There aren´t many near me & the few there are are not ready yet.

There aren't any blackberries near us (well... not the fruity type )