Brambles

I have some happy memories of time spent blackberry picking with my mother; spending time one on one with a parent is always special and in my mind is linked with warm late summer days. Now I have my own daughter we have been going once or twice a year in the late summer - easy to do as brambles seem to grow pretty much everywhere. Blackberries growing wild are not quite as large as those you can buy in the supermarket but I can't really work out why people pay £1.99 for a measly punnet of the berries when they are available for free alongside most roads in rural and semi-rural areas. Even when I lived in London it was always easy to find them. They are ...  Read the complete review

Roll up, roll up, food for free! That statement has a certain ring attached to it doesn't it? I know that Richard Mabey has written a very much talked about book on the subject of what nature can offer us in terms of nourishment. Sadly as yet I haven't read it, in fact I have just been very tempted to order a used copy from Amazon at just a little over £6. I have to admit to being a fan of Ray Mears and although I hold my hands up to only being a fan I love to watch Ray pounding his berries and making weird and wonderful concoctions using gatherings from the hedgerows. Blackberry picking just has to take most of us back to our childhood and ...  Read the complete review

When I was a child in the 1970's, I often went blackberry picking with my parents. In recent years, however, I have not had so many opportunities to do this when blackberries/brambles are in season. This is mainly due to living in a built up urban area, not having a car to get to rural areas where you are more likely to find brambles growing wild, and having a small daughter (22 months old). Since I gave up work to stay at home with my daughter, we have had a lot less money coming in, so I have been keen to find ways of living more cheaply, and picking free food is something that everyone can do. This year, I managed to pick quite a few blackberries when ...  Read the complete review

This has been a wonderful year for blackberries in my part of the UK. They've been bigger and more prolific than ever. I no longer pick them from hedgerows alongside any roads now because of the level of pollution, although it's sad to see so many go to waste this way. I have wild brambles at the bottom of my garden that I pick my blackberries from. Although brambles themselves are unsightly and grow like mad if not checked, I love the idea of free food so I let them grow, just keeping them pruned and shortening any dangerously long branches. I have probably picked around twenty pounds of berries this year and still left enough for the birds who ...  Read the complete review

Brambles, Blackberry brambles straddle the pyracantha at the bottom of my garden. They ramble unrestrained over the wall. Beware anyone who climbs my boundary the bramble has some fearsome spines, thorns that will tear your skin to threads. Raspberries are of the same genus Rubus the family Rosaceae and they can also be called a bramble. The word bramble really relates to the long thorny stem With care I pick the black berries that grow on this bramble, many a blackberry bramble thorn has embedded itself in my tender skin. The blackberry has been tamed for garden use and bred not to have thorns also bigger berries. However my blackberries are the ...  Read the complete review