Right now we’re picking blackberries most days. Living here in western Oregon (where the blackberries are invasive and everywhere, and we’re constantly battling them to keep them from overtaking our entire garden and property), I’m laughing a bit that we planted a blackberry in our garden on purpose. Our neighbors might laugh at that as well. But, it’s a thornless blackberry! And that means we can easily pick the berries without getting all scratched. (When family and friends visit Bracken will lead them to the plant and say: “Look! No thorns!!” and sometimes convince them to run their finger along the canes for proof.) We planted it in an area that has a lot of gravel and isn’t very suitable for garden space, so we wouldn’t be planting anything there anyway. Also, we hardly water it. And yet (!) it has grown huge and produces tons and tons of blackberries every year. (That shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, seeing as how all the wild blackberries thrive around here during our dry summers.)
This year that thornless blackberry has been producing more than ever and we can hardly keep up picking the berries fast enough. Every time we go to pick them, the chickens come running down to their lower yard in the hopes we’ll throw them some berries (which we always do.) Ones that are overripe and squishy go to the chickens and they watch each berry we pick to see if it will go in our container or if we’ll throw it in their yard. The blackberries from our thornless blackberry are not as sweet as the wild blackberries around here, but they’re still good and we’ve been freezing them for smoothies, which they are perfect for. We pick wild ones too, but the areas we have for picking here are hard to get to and you have to fight through the brambles to get each berry. Our neighbor invited us to come pick blackberries at their place, right next to their paved driveway, and it was the easiest time I’ve ever had picking wild blackberries. They keep the blackberries trimmed and easy to reach. Plus, on that sunny hillside, the berries were sweet as can be and especially tasty. We filled our containers in record time and added more blackberries to our freezer that night. Right now I look around it seems the blackberries are everywhere and endless, but I know we’ll be using up the blackberries in our freezer quickly, so we have a lot more blackberry picking yet to do!
Kris. W says
I just wanted to let you know how much I love your blog. Your photos are absolutely wonderful, and I love the way you do Gratitude Sunday. Whenever things are feeling kinda grey, or I’ve been really stressed, I sign on and see what beautiful things you have posted. It’s very inspiring. Thank you for sharing with us!
tarynkae says
Thank you Kris! Sweet comments like yours help inspire me to keep sharing and writing. 🙂
Kris. W says
🙂
Grandma julie says
Yay! Can’t wait to enjoy some next week!! 😊
tarynkae says
Yay! We can’t wait either! 🙂