June 21, 2011
As The Deer Hunter cut wood over the weekend-me and the girls went in search of the first ripe Blackberry-and we found it.
Seems like I’ve had a lot to say about Blackberries since I first started the Blind Pig-here’s a few old posts in case you missed one along the way:
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
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Is there anything sweeter than a Georgia Peach? Since Chatter and Chitter were born in Gainesville, Georgia I’ve always told them…
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Granny, her mother Gazzie, and her nephew Winston More than a few folks in Granny’s family left the mountains of…
Pap the Marine Every time I visit the VA Hospital in Otteen, I am amazed by the incredible staff. The…
I discovered the music of Ola Belle Reed about 6 months ago. How I missed her all my life-I’ll never…
They are ripe down here. I can’t pick enough to make anything with, seems by the time I get home the bowl is empty. LOL
Not fair! Our blackberries aren’t ripe yet. But the Raspberries are!!
Congratulations from the Blackberry Lady! Mine are not ripe yet. But when they are, i will be busy picking every other day until they are gone. I have been picking berries since I was a child traipsing up the old coal bank road with Grandma, Mom, my cousin and my aunt. Memories are golden, blackberry jam is delicious.
Ours are not ripe yet. I love all things blackberry but when I see a blackberry I think COBBLER!
Yummm, Tipper!
How I remember the days of blackberry “hunting” in North Carolina. My best summer buddy, Zana Avis, and I would be gone for hours with our little plastic buckets picking blackberries. Sometimes we’d have to take her little brother with us, but he was a pretty good little kid and he was almost as excited to find those juicy treasures as we were. Nothing, I mean NOTHING tastes as good as a warm, drippy blackberry on a hot summer day. If I recall, we never came back with too many berries, but we were never very hungry for supper either.
We do have blackberries in Michigan, but we have many more raspberries than true blackberries. There are parts of our property that are covered up with black raspberry vines. The only problem about getting to them are the infernal mosquitoes! Speaking of mosquitoes, you mentioned that I should add a link to my blog on your site. Well, just so happens that I just added another post to my blog about this itchy subject. Hope anyone who likes will hop on over and enjoy!
http://colmel.wordpress.com/
Tipper,
I’ve been craving a Blackberry
Cobler lately. I missed out on
all them wild strawberries I had
found earlier, got busy with
something else. But this reminds
me to check on all those briars
that use to be loaded with black-
berries. My dogs are gonna have a
job to do, check for them ole mean snakes. The berry you’re showing looks just about right…Ken
Those wild blackberries are always so sweet and you can’t eat just one!
There’s absolutely no better jelly than that made from wild blackberries! Chiggers love us, June bugs love the blackberries! Our summers get so dry now it makes the berries small and bitter.
Jealous! Our blackberries might be ripe come August if we are lucky and get summer soon! I do really love the wild blackberries though, yum!
It is mulberry time here 🙂 We love mulberry cobbler!
Blackberries are worth talking about Tipper. Long ago, in another world, my sister and I were sitting on a bench behind the table with a plate of blackberries before us. She didn’t like blackberries much and told Mother hers weren’t sweet enough. Mother added more sugar–which was something of a scarce commodity.
Then she said they were too sweet. Mother told her to eat them anyway. She would take a bite and when Mother wasn’t looking, turn around and spit them in a big matchbox that was in the window behind us. She got caught and got the only whipping I ever saw her get.
I too found a couple of “ripe” blackberries. They were not very sweet, so the next one I found I wet it and dipped in some sugar…patiently waiting for the mother-load.
well if you have a lot to say about something I can’t think of a better something than blackberries YUM!
Ours are almost ready…another week I think and we’ll have purple fingers!
Tipper,
My husband brought in a handful of berries three or four days ago. They were tasty but small and dried looking…I think these past few weeks of drought will hurt our berry crop…The rain that we got over the past couple of days might help the later developing berries somewhat…I used to can a lot of jam and jelly but usually just freeze the berries or make freezer jam nowdays and try to cut down on the sugar…No way can you buy blackberry jam or jelly that tastes like homemade!
Thanks Tipper,
A beauty to behold! wild blackberries make the finest jam in the world!!
In was in the blackberry patch that I met most of the chiggers I’ve known in my life!
And my Mama would always say watch out for the snakes. I guess snakes like blackberries too!
My one and only experience with picking blackberries left me covered with chiggers. I’ll be going to a u pick from now on as much as I would love to say I gathered them myself! 🙂
Unlike brother Jim, I’ve never been a big fan of blackberries (they’re just okay to me), but when I was a boy, if I’d pick enough blackberries for Mama to make a good-sized cobbler or two, she’d reward me with a lemon chiffon pie – which I loved. It was even worth paying the price of a few chiggers that inevitably went with the blackberry picking.
Tipper, did you really post this at 4 a.m.?
I can hardly wait to get my first berry. A couple of weeks ago I planted our first blueberries and rasberries. Hopefully next year I’ll be canning up some tasty jams. Sounds like you and your girls had fun.