This last month, we seem to have been fully occupied at our allotment just keeping
pace with blackberry picking.
Balancing on tip-toe and stretching to reach the best fruit - always just out of reach - is almost as good as a pilates class!
Obviously we're picking from cultivated briars but
I've been surprised this year by the number of other people blackberry picking;
from the hedges round the playing fields were we go dog-walking, from the brambles in the wood and even
one intrepid pair I saw picking next to a traffic island!
Is it down to the season? The berries this year have been delicious.
Or something to do with economics?
or just a desire to get back in touch with natural surroundings?
Newspapers and magazines certainly seem to be giving foraging a lot of press.
We're very much into grow-your-own and foraging-
in early Summer I pick elderflowers for home made fizz
and soon we'll be out and about looking for elderberries, rose hips and sloes, even the humble hawthorn berry has its uses.
I wonder if any of the blackberry pickers will be joining us?
Are there any first-time foragers out there?
I've always picked blackberries. Never thought NOT to do it. I am not very keen on people taking up foraging, at least not when you get huge groups of them doing it. Many places are too built up to offer the quantities that people seem to want to take. Except blackberries, which do seem to be inexhaustable for a few weeks of the year.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many years the new foragers will keep it up? Maybe it's just the latest craze? A few years ago, everyone wanted an allotment. Now, particularly since last year's rainy summer, there seem to be lots standing idle. Picking fruit from hedgerows is definitely less work though!
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