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

LOL Twinkly, doesn't he think foxes etc are allowed in fields?

The birds seem to be eating all the ones in my garden . There were scenes of orgiastic flapping all weekend.

Yes Streatham Common Blu - the top end next to the Rookery. Tooting Common apparently is full too. We got LOADS, but they were still tons to ripen. Frustratingly there is an overgrown front garden on my route home full of the ripest looking berries EVER. I have picked around the edges but the house looksd a bit...rough...and Im far too scared to actually go into the garden.

Yes currysecret -even if we could find blackberries growing... imagine how polluted they'd be?

OP, Reminds me of the time I had relatives over for lunch, had a fruit bowl set out for afters, and proudly to the small DC who picked out an apple - they are off our own tree...... it was virtually snatched out of DC hand , though given back when I said naturally grown, organic, far healthier than what you'd find in any shop, as it was picked today!

OFFERED proudly to the DC

Captain, I've no science to back it up, but I doubt blackberries from a city park are more polluted than farm produced ones, which need to be sprayed within an inch of their life for a commercialy viable crop.

Sloes are good for adding to homemade jam...loads of pectin so you get a really good set and they add a nice tartness.

For all the south Londoners; Crystal Palace Park is excellent for Blackberries,esp.up round the terraces.

I used to have an excellent local blackberry patch when we lived in Greenwich - but I never saw anyone else picking them!

We;ve been taking a litre ice-cream tub out on every dog walk for weeks and coming back with it full of beautiful big sweet blackberries. Hardly anybody else seems to be bothering. We have wild raspberries and elderberries as well and nobody else picks those either, and in a few weeks we'll be the only ones collecting the kilos and kilos of chestnuts that fall from the trees at the top of the field. Very sad. when I was akid, blackberrying was a competitive sport!

Captain I agree with create give them a rinse when you get home if you must and they will be the best brambles you ever tasted!
If it all breaks down you are one that is not going to survive!

Wandsworth Common also usually excellent source of blackberries, big bushes just behnd the Toastrack. Am normally only personwho pcks from there due to a. 90% of other residents spending summer in France/Cornwall/Norfolk and b. Feeling pretty certan that washing and cooking berries will get rid of anythng undesirable.

We picked a bag full yesterday they're lovely and sweet will also be out picking Blue Button mushrooms soon as my DH loves them but last time I brought some it was £3 for 4 mushrooms!

I'm from a mushroom-loving country and terrify most Brits every year when I pick and - the horror - eat wild mushrooms. According to most people, if they were edible, surely they would be sold in supermarkets!

Our plum tree went into overdrive this year and I was bringing bags of them to work, one of my colleagues wouldn't touch them because "wasps would have been on them".

I was very

I bought some blackberries from a supermarket because there aren't any where I live now. :( And do you know what? They were revolting. Hard in the middle with an almost peppermint flavour. And huge. Big mutant things. I threw them out into the garden for the birds, who weren't exactly over keen either.

Next time I come back to the UK I'm planning on digging up a bramble bush and bringing it back to plant in the garden. That, and some bluebells.

Suncottage. Wasps are brilliant natural pest control. I had no idea people had become quite so alienated from their food; it's really sad, even if the reasons are easy to understand.

HeavyHeidi I'm enjoying picturing your 'mushroom-loving country' .

Baroness, I'm sure you mean you plan to buy some bluebells from a sustainable source. You mustn't did up wild ones they're protected

Heidi, now mushrooms do scare me, but at least I know that's because I'm stupid and poorly educated in such matters

Me an the DC have just come home from a long relaxing walk, we picked loads of blackberries and they loved it.

I have some lovely childhood memories of walking for miles with my grandma and grandad blackberry picking and hope I'm passing on those happy times to my DC.

It is sad that people would rather buy them from the supermarket than pick them.

And i'm sure we'll all enjoy the apple and blackberry pie after dinner tonight :)

I'm a city girl, too, and grew up picking wild fruit. OK, it helped that my
mum's a mad keen gardener, so I learned to identify and pick as a child, but you just have to keep a look out - you don't even need trips out to any of the Commons. Brambles and elderberries are opportunists, and will grow wherever they can, especially if they are undisturbed. I used to pick the sweetest berries in an alleyway behind my school. No soil to speak of, the brambles grew out of a crack in the paving.

create/suncottage- the parks near me are all the manicured typpe- no brambles to be seen I'm afraid. I don't fancy a walk along the railway tracks...

I am laughing at 'wasps may have been on them'...

It is weird seeing them in supermarkets. All packaged in plastic and marked £2.99.

I know if DH saw DS picking and eating them straight off the bush he would develop a nervous twitch though.

Ooh, here's a suggestion for wild-food enthusiasts: elderflower pancakes. Just snip a cupful of just-opened elderflowers into a bowl of pancake mix and cook as usual. Heavenly.

there aren't many wild bushes where i live so we grow them in our back garden, along with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and apples. dd knows the only ones she has to wash are the blueberries as the dog can wee on them through the cute picket fence.

i spend a fortune on strawberries from tesco as dd loves them and eats a punnet roughtly every day! my garden isn't big enough to grow them for her.

we have loads of blackberries at the mo - would they work in pancake mix too d'you reckon?