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

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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

I buy from the shops becuase as a family we are limited and struggle to get out and about for various reasons.

BUt I was raised in Somerset, I think it's a huge shame and I love that now ds2 is old enough to play out he usually comes back stained purple. Blimey i think I ate nowt but berries as a child in summer, we had a mattress in a den in the centre of the biggest bush: now a friggin housing estate.

We have a few opposite on a hedge and the boys grabb those as we head out although 2 will not weat them.

Foraging is fantastic (and very fashionable ) but posters are quite right to point out that there are very real health risks attached to some forms of foraging - one should never forage at the side of a road, for example.

Uber foraging

Same here Peachy it was all fields and lanes behind our house in the 70's my sisters used to take me and DB blackberry picking now its houses as far as you can see.

Caughtinthenet, I think it must be a north-south thing, because when I was a child 50 years ago in rural Hertfordshire, my first teacher told us never to pick blackberries after Michaelmas because then the Devil spat on them.

We always went out on nature walks round the lanes in the autumn term and ate the berries straight off the bush as well as picking loads for the school cooks to make blackberry and apple crumble.

There is a horsey term "Blackberry Coat" which refers to when the winter coat is starting to come through and the coat looks dull.

Sorry - totally useless information there. Irrelevanting.

we used to go every year to pick blackberries with my grandmother, I hate blackberries so I never ate them but still loved picking them. My children at he moment are enjoying picking the tomatoes from the garden (i may have gone a bit tomato crazy we have about 8 plants and god know how many tomatoes) We also grow courgettes, strawberries and loads of other things. Other childrens reaction to our garden is funny though - one was totally convinced that he would get ill eating a strawberry because it had only just come off the plant. It is odd but understandable if people just dont have experience of growing or seeing things grown.

We have 'mini' italian plum tomatoes....but just the one plant.

At the last count we had 10 tomatoes!

With your 8 plants you must have oodles powerdbypepsi

What will you do with them? Eat them in salads or make chutney's etc

sausages i have no idea i like chutney but i would have enough chutney for years lol i dont know what made me plant so many i had a mad moment .
I think a mix of eating as they are, soup chutney etc and giving a bag to anyone who comes to my door!

:o power that's what we do, it's fab, in dad's garden he usually has 15 potato plants, 2 various beans, 5/6 pepper ones, about 25 radish ones and the same lettices, the toms he's got about a dozen, but we go over, my brother does and he gives it to my nan's as well lol. must say it's good esp if i'm a bit short one week, as we go tot he garden dig up a pot tree and get enough ptatoes for the week.

Crikey, the woman would hate me. I'm very rural, we go for evening walks and know exactly where the wild apple and plum trees are, have also found greengages. As for the blackberries, I can see them from my window, so if we want a crumble I send the dcs out and get enough for the crumble, the idea being that there are some left for others. In six years I've never seen anyone else pick them!

Ok, one of our neighbours has a pear tree that is just dropping the fruit on to the road, do you think it would be ok to stick a note through the door asking if they don't want them could we pick them?

I'm not overfond of pears, but it breaks my heart to see the waste. And have friend at work who does grow things I prefer could get a little bater system going

yanbu
dd had a lovely crumble, raspberries from MIL garden and apples stolen from neighbours tree(told the neighbour that I had teken them the next day she lol, and later gave me a whole bag full :o)

A very stupid question I expect, but we live near shell/octel and I worry that the pollution would make the berries not safe to eat?...

Am loving this thread....and good to see that so many are so resourceful with natures bounty (if you get what I mean).

Smellslikecatpee - you should definitely ask about those pears. Waste not, want not! Can't understand people who have fruit trees but don't actually use the fruit.

My DH never understands this attitude - many a time he has come home with free fruit and nuts.

Do ask about the pears! Don't do what I suspect my neighbour of doing and skip over the fence to take ALL the ripe ones I had big plans for without mentioning it .

On a similar topic I have discovered some sloes and want to keep an eye on them, but I want to be sure they are actually sloes (I'm afraid my foraging is limited to blackberries at the moment!). Is there anything else that could be poisonous that resembles sloes? These fruits appear like very small purplish plums with a frosty "bloom". The tree appears to have a few thorns, but not as many as the word blackthorn would suggest. Can anyone help me with a photo?

I'm in London too and i pick wild blackberries in the parks and gardens and where they grow wild. Its a simple pleasure. sometimes you get "looks" but i find as the years go by i see more and more people picking them as I do.

A couple of years ago our local Morrisons was selling blackberries under the heading 'exotic fruits'

Sounds exciting Tatty....

You keep your eye on them and get them identified quickly.

It's so easy to make sloe gin....
I'm making damson gin for the first time. Same method....and I know it's going to be really good.

This might be useful...

www.cottagesmallholder.com/a-quick-guide-to-identifying-some-hedgerow-fruit-3753

This evening I was across the road on my housing estate with my Wolf Garten extending pole and fruit grappler bag thing. (I'm a bit of a snazzy gear fiend) Came back with ten pears.

Tomorrow if it's fine I will go for a walk from work at lunchtime and pick elderberries and blackberries from the woods near where I work (Greater NW London)

I'm keeping an eye on the rosehips

Saturday morning I and DS are going to pick the yellow plums in the woods behind our house, and maybe the apples out on the fields.

i notice lots more people berry picking now.

it is sort of odd to me, unless you've grown it yourself obviously

i worry for the poor woodland birds and creatures with nothing to eat too