To wonder if I'm the only weirdo still picking blackberries?

[DrSeuss]

I grew up in a village forty years ago where it was perfectly normal to go blackberrying, now I live in a suburb where there's a massive bramble patch about fifty feet from my door and another two a short walk away. Every time I go out to pick them, firstly it's clear from the volume that no one else is bothering and secondly I get lots of comments from passers by about what will I do with them. Not unfriendly comments, more surprised and unclear as to why I would bother! I suggested to several that they should combine dog walking and foraging but they never do. Most years I get a freezer shelf full. One year I made blackberry vodka for people as Christmas presents and had requests for more. This evening's haul are in the microwave right now turning into jam. Am I the only weirdo or do others do it too?

I do usually but haven't bothered this year other than the few in the garden.
If anyone has lots you have to make blackberry cordial, it's like Ribena but blackberry flavoured and is lush:
1500g blackberries
cold water, to cover them (about 1lt of water per 1kg of fruit)
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp lemon juice
400g sugar

Pick over & wash the blackberries. Place in a pan and just cover them with water.
Boil them until they burst (mash them to assist juice extraction). Strain juice off fruit through metal sieve.
Put blackberry juice, sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon stick in pan. Bring to boil and simmer until sugar dissolves, and for about 20 minutes in total.
Cool. Sterilise bottles and decant.

Got three bags of sugar for two quid in Poundworld yesterday, fruit is free.

Blackberry scones

I'm 30 and love it. Get some very odd looks round here though. Until the council started cutting the bushes back approx a week before they turned ripe

I love that I have them so feely available and can just send DD out to the garden with a bowl to get her own pudding! Really do need to cut the hedges back though :)

Love blackberries, have picked loads. Lots in the freezer, need to make more chutney.
Love free fruit, first batch of cider is already bubbling away.

We pick blackberries for jam and vodka, except the last two years. The farm behind us was sold and the new bastard owners cut down all the bramble bushes. They also filled in the drainage ditches flooding houses on my estate, blocked rights of way and dug over the footpath causing several rambles to break limbs!
Fortunately the land is getting back to normality after he was made to flatten the paths, redig the ditches and since his crops failed (fairly obvious they would due to soil etc)he has started to let the brambles grow again so we've had some this year.
We love blackberry picking.

Mulberries and damsons are ripe at the moment too. Very delicious. Most people don't pick either as they don't know what they are.

Yes I picked some this week. Made a fab desert for a party.

No its not just you, I'm picking. I pick to eat as I go, I don't do jam chutney shittery but I do pick.

I'm a dick. I meant to say we picked nearly a kilo of them not a bloody pound! Baby brain.

Charity shops and boot sales are my best source for Mason jars. I do an immense amount of canning to fill my shelves and freezers for the colder months to cut the grocery bills.

I pick them from my garden. As do lots of other people who lean over my fence

I'm afraid I'm no jam maker though, we just eat them. I do like a blackberry crumble too!

I would be wary of picking anything other than blackberries in the wild as I'm not 100% sure of which the others are. We get something along the road which could be elderberries or maybe not. Too unsure to try it!

We've got masses in the garden, really good crop this year, been picking since the end if July and still going strong.

DS and I pick every year. We pick from brambles in local parks. I have never seen anyone else do this in our area! I freeze them all and we have tarts and crumbles all year round. So cheap and we really love them. They taste so much better than the ones you can buy in the supermarket in winter which have travelled from somewhere far away like Mexico.

We're rampant blackberryists!

Ours aren't ripe yet but the DCs are very keen as they love my bramble and apple crumble!

You aren't. My garden is FULL

Years ago I used to have a secret patch in the woods that no one else knew about, and the bushes were taller than me. I could walk underneath them as it was sort of hollow. It must have been there for centuries.
There was also an abandoned house the other side, with hand made glass in the windows. It was magical, I wanted to live there.

I grew up in rural Wales and we would spend HOURS blackberrying.
I'm kind of embarrassed really as all the blackberries I see are along the roadside and I always imagine people will think I'm a weirdo

Waiting to pick - still a bit unripe up here mostly. Love apple and blackberry crumble.

I take the kids and DH blackberrying but I'm a country bumpkin married to a city boy.

I have this morning and will continue to tomorrow ;) Blackberry porridge yum yum

Picked the last mulberry this morning, tomorrow the leaves will turn yellow and fall off.
Blaeberries in freezer, smuggled back from IoM.
Elderberry sprigs are bending over, so now ripe (pontack sauce is essential).
Early apples are coming in, must go and check on the quinces.
Think I know every local free fruit tree