Blackberry Picking

[girlfriend44]

Just been blackberry picking. Do people still do this as there where plenty there? Free fruit.
Does everyone just buy them now or do you still go picking?

I like her practicality - if you’re going to get prickled you may as well have something to show for it 😀

They are just starting to ripen round here. I managed to get some for pudding.

I've been picking them for a couple of weeks from our garden. I'm sure they're earlier than I remember from when I was wee. Love them in muffins.

Amazing, best I have ever tasted. Mine are in the backyard (not irrigated), but a wild variety. The drought actually added max flavour... and I have serious doubts that drought is any risk to brambles, they probably could withstand a direct nuclear strike.

Does anyone, anywhere, actually BUY blackberries??

I'm not sure I've ever actually seen them for sale!

You can buy them but they are very expensive!
Have started picking here, sun trap garden in sussex. Loads still to come though.

We buy them when they're available in supermarkets sometimes.

We've bought them from Asda and sainsburys plenty of times and Morrisons had them in the other day.

It's very important to DH to see them in the supermarket. So he can go, "HAHA we picked a THOUSAND POUNDS WORTH". He even weighs them and tells us how much they're worth

We have loads growing behind our garden, will be picking them tomorrow for crumble.

To be fair, cultured blackberries are a bit of a different taste. I have both wild and civilised ones (that constantly lose in that survival of the fittest game), and the taste is markedly different, the latter tasting somewhere close to mulberry than wild blackberry.

I've seen them in tescos for about £2 for 150g and they are massive but no flavour. Imports from Spain.

I've been a bit wary of picking blackberries since the Chernobyl explosion. So now I only go and pick them at dusk and avoid the ones that are glowing.

We go picking every year and make jam and crumbles. In South London they are often ready now, that was certainly the case last year (we made jam exactly one year ago today). This year they seem a little underripe still, I am hoping they will be perfect in a couple of weeks.

Can’t say I blame her - she was looking forward to a few bottles of sloe gin no doubt!

I expect you're joking but if there was still fall out from chernobyl it would have been affecting everything we have eaten for some time.

So do you just wash them and eat? Also, can you point me in the right direction of some recipes? I think I might go and pick myself some blackberries

We went today (Nottinghamshire).

I had some for breakfast on my favourite walk the other day.

How rude and unnecessary. I'm not even on Tiktok. There's always one who wants to turn a nice easygoing post into something horrible.

Wash and eat them. We have them with crumble and cream or ice cream. Or just at them as they are

We are picking wild raspberries in Scotland lots still to ripen close to the river but the ones further away are gorgeous. I plan to make jam but then the kids eat them all. I feel like fruit / pea picking is a mandatory part of child hood.

My kids love blackberry picking, we go every year. Always see loads of others too

I don’t tend to pick them very often myself but I see loads of people picking them on walks etc. My mum picks loads and loads every year.

Been picking for a little while here, North Yorkshire. Good flavour this year.
echo a pp comment though about not leaving footpaths etc to gather fruit off private land

I do it every year; we always took my DNephew, and now he’s a teenager and it’s “not cool”, we take my DS, who is now big enough (3).

I did a big sesh on my day off last week; found a lot of bushes in a field that clearly nobody else knew about (yes!) and picked a whole ice cream tub full. The berries are early this year, and they’re ginormous! Properly big like supermarket ones.

I’ll go again in the next few weeks with DH and DS, and we pick them casually until Michaelmas (traditional point for them to start tasting off; country people always used to say the Devil wee’d on them) as we see them when out walking. I’ve made bramble jelly in the past, but think I’ll just make jam with DS this year instead. The ones I got this week are all in freezer bags for pies and crumbles later in the year.

So I said my dc had come home with a tub earlier - not sure where they found them as after this thread I was on the look out when walking ddog. This is how all the ones along the path are looking which is why you don't see many out picking here yet