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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why anyone buys blackberries?

72 replies

MakeHayNotStraw · 03/09/2012 17:42

Ok, I am clearly a bit bored, but also curious as to why anyone would pay £3 for a small punnet of blackberries in a supermarket. Doesn't bother me, buy what you like, obviously, I'm just idly curious! I can kind of understand it in the centre of cities (although I live in a city and still managed to gather a bagful on the way back from the school run) but my parents live in the arse end of nowhere in the country and their "local" supermarket still sells them, which presumably they wouldn't if they didn't sell?

OP posts:
Mintyy · 03/09/2012 17:43

You are not being unreasonable to wonder anything.

picnicbasketcase · 03/09/2012 17:45

Better quality, nicer looking, less chance of them having beetle larvae about to crawl out if them, haven't had enormous flies landing on them, dogs cocking their legs on them or car fumes blown all over them?

By the way, I've never bought them either but can see why people might be tempted Grin

porcamiseria · 03/09/2012 17:45

yanbu, I think the same

and they taste shite anyway

RuleBritannia · 03/09/2012 17:46

People can be lazy, certainly, but if they have no conception of what blackberries look like in the wild they will be dubious about what they are picking.

I worked once at a place with a large field surrounded by brambles. My DH and I loved picking the blackberries every year - they were so big!

The caretaker had a fruit tree in his garden but didn't know what the fruit was. We were allowed to take home sackfuls quite a lot of greengages!

ActionLiposomes · 03/09/2012 17:47

I buy them, although they are normally £3 for 2 punnets. They are massive and very sweet compared to most of the wild ones round our way. I do pick the wild ones as well though.

ShirleyO · 03/09/2012 17:48

YANBU.

It's crazy!

ChopstheDuck · 03/09/2012 17:51

Hassle of picking them maybe?

I jsut send the kids out to fetch them :) I also stop by the Kiwk Fit in town for an apple tree!

Original poster
MakeHayNotStraw · 03/09/2012 17:52

Fair enough, some good points made. And yes, a little sugar never hurts on the ones near us...although dd loves them and has made herself sick eating them more than once!

OP posts:
RabbitsMakeBrownEggs · 03/09/2012 17:53

I've been picking them at the back of my garden the past few weeks and have about five kilos in my freezer. Been a good harvest this year.

Virgil · 03/09/2012 17:57

We live in the middle of a wood. Acres and acres of brambles everywhere but the blackberries are all tiny and hard. Nothing like the big juicy ones in the supermarkets.

biffnbuster · 03/09/2012 17:59

Tried blackberry picking at the weekend, and wasn't very sucssesfull, first it rained and we got wet, went back to car. Stopped raining, walked along
hedge to find some, it rained and we got wet, 3 of us went home with 4 berrys. I got loads more this time last year !!

ObiWan · 03/09/2012 18:02

Grin at biffnbuster with 4 blackberries.

Mayisout · 03/09/2012 18:04

I make bramble and apple crumble - great, much better than apples alone. (have with ice cream and cream)

Labootin · 03/09/2012 18:05

Because I live in Dubai so they have to be flown in at great expense

But I like the and they remind me of England

So ner

Lueji · 03/09/2012 18:06

The ones at the back of my house, and around the green are all picked up by some people with buckets.
Probably sell them to supermarkets, who knows?

WhatYouLookingAt · 03/09/2012 18:08

its too early yet after the poor summer.

2rebecca · 03/09/2012 18:11

The wild blackberries here are small and nearly all pips. I never bought them when I lived down south in England. There are plenty of good wild rasps nearby but the blackberries are rubbish.

peeriebear · 03/09/2012 18:11

DH picked some up cheap last year in the reduced section of some supermarket. They were so bland and watery! This year I have left a bramble to take over a corner of my garden and hopefully I will have free berries.
It's being dug out as much as possible come winter, I've seen from my dad's garden how much they take over given free rein! It looked like the thorny forest round Sleeping Beauty's castle.

JeezyOrangePips · 03/09/2012 18:13

No such thing as brambles where I live, so there's absolutely nowhere to pick them.

amck5700 · 03/09/2012 18:15

.....I like to leave the wild ones to feed the birds and other wildlife - the countryside is so much nicer with live things in it :o

chihiro · 03/09/2012 18:16

YAB a bit U. We've been blackberrying every year for the past three years and never managed to gather more than enough berries for a single crumble. Call me greedy if you like, but I'd quite like to eat apple and blackberry crumble more than once a year!

And last year there were loads of maggots in them - took me ages to wash them all out.

RainbowRabbit33 · 03/09/2012 18:16

Ooohps... Read the title and was about to respond that yanbu, they're shit and the keys are too small. Grin

I'll buy the fruity kind from the supermarket, but usually when they're on offer.

headfairy · 03/09/2012 18:18

yanbu... we picked nearly a kilo of them yesterday and made some lovely jam. For free :o

Kveta · 03/09/2012 18:20

I got nearly 3 yo DS to collect ones at his eye level last week, and we got enough to make 2 pots of jam :o which he won't eat, but I am very pleased with!

went out today and it looks like we should have another crop later this week/early next week. Also the sloe bushes round us are dripping fruit, so can't wait to crop some of them!!

anyway YANBU OP - round here I have never seen anyone else blackberrying, despite about a mile of park with heaving bushes to pluck, so to speak.

TitsalinaBumSquash · 03/09/2012 18:20

I don't pick them after picking a whole bag load as a child, mMum put them in a bowl of water to clean them and 10 minutes later there was hundreds of baby maggots floating on top of the water never gotten that image out my head so I don't buy/pick/ eat them anymore.