Last year we had almost no blackberries to speak of; the ones we did have were small and had almost no flavor. So this year I waited anxiously for what I hoped would be a better season.
All during the springtime when the berry vines were blossoming I persuaded Nolemana not to cut them back. I wanted blackberries! I was willing to brave the pokes and scratches from the vines (get thorns, yeah?) in order to get them.
So Sunday Nolemana and I drove down to the end of the driveway for some pickin’ time. First I stopped to take a photo of the crookneck squash I’d planted down there to see if it’d produce anything. The soil is really junk and the bush isn’t very large, but it actually had a squash, its second one!
Then on to the blackberries! They aren’t huge like they were two years ago, but the ripe ones have plenny flavor.
They’re pretty to look at, too.
Musubi wanted to have his photo taken, but his feeties were getting poked so he got back into the car right away.
There are tons of berries!
Here’s some ripe ones!
This is how many there are along the driveway.
Yum, yum!! I was having visions of blackberry cobbler, blackberry pie, blackberries on my cereal….
…and blackberry jam and blackberry pie…
But try look da thorns!! Savage, I tell you!
Really savage!
After just a few minutes, I had this much.
Nolemana and I have two different styles of picking the berries, each with its own advantage. His way is to take the clippers and clip off a branch with lots of berries, then take the berries off at the car. The disadvantage to this way is that lots of unripe berries get clipped off at the same time. But at the car, he can hold the pokey branch and not get so many scratches as he takes off the good berries.
Aside from just going foa broke and picking the berries one by one and getting scratched, I put my bowl under a full branch and then pick the berries. All the pokey branches are held by the bowl. No disadvantages at all.
And wikiwiki, I get dis many!
We fill up a lot of baskets. All for free!
So near and yet so far…
These ones are a gift to all the birds that are waiting for us to leave!
Ho da ‘ono! Blackberry season!! Pretty nice, considering blackberries are called the Oregon State weed!
A Mānoa Girl's Bloggie 
Awesome!!!! Are they sour? The blackberries we get around here tend to be sourish.
You got a lot of berries! Will you freeze ’em? I picked back in VA last week, and gave them all to my sister, as I didn’t think they’d stand the journey down here. Now I’m wishing I’d kept some…gotta look for picking opportunities around Atlanta.
Sometimes things that are worthwhile take lots of pilikia to reach. I’m glad your berry harvest was productive.
Yuuuuuummmmmmy!
We often foraged for food where I grew up (waay out in teh country in southern lower Michigan). Blackberries, elderberries, sometimes mulberries, wild crabapples, even some asparagus in the spring.
Hmm.. for some reason my comment didn’t appear
I was wondering if the blackberries are sweet? Because those we get around here are usually sour… 😀
Those look very yummy!
Mokihana, you can totally knit Lady Eleanor. The entrelac is easy! You’re only dealing with a little island of about 12 stitches at a time, and it’s really fun in something like Silk Garden, because the colorway keeps you intrigued.
Many knitters advocate knitting backwards so you don’t have to turn the work constantly. I found my gauge did funky things when I knat backwards, so I turned constantly. Made it a bit slower, but it was an enjoyable knit, so I stuck with it. Not hard at all!
You figured a great way to pick blackberries with that bowl!
When I was a Water Meter Reader (WA), I got to pick loads and loads of blackberries in the alley ways.
It’s good to be back in the blogging world and to hear from you!
We used to take a ladder with us when we went to pick blackberries. Once the berries at the edge of the patch were picked, we laid the ladder down onto the brambles and walked into the middle to pick more. The biggest and sweetest always seemed to be just out of reach!