The one mile blackberry challenge....

Blackberries and their many guises, brambles, etc must surely be everybody's first, and to some, their only foray into foraging.

I remember the railway sidings behind our school, carrier bags, stained fingers and clothes, in the early 1980's school holiday's, the screwed up face from the tart ones and sweet heady aroma of them baking in a crumble.

eat them raw, sugar them, warm them through, bake them, juice them, jam them, freeze and preserve them, ferment their juice, leather/jelly them, there's something different for every bagful you pick.

It is rumoured there are over 2000 individual species of bramble/blackberry - and you'll also notice that the closer they are to homes, gardens, allotments, and farm animals (and thus closer to a ready free supply of fertiliser from run off) the fatter and juicer they usually are, with the hedgerow ones being much smaller, later to ripen, and much planer in taste - but still perfect for sugaring up and baking with.

 

So I set you a challenge - even if you've never foraged before, that within a mile of your house, you can find a good bagful of blackberries between now and the middle of September - enough to at least make a good crumble, and a pot of hedgerow jam or two.

Tj@TheForagersNook