Unbidden but prolific. Beloved but exotic nuisance. Sweet and flavorful but armed with blood-creasing spines. Blackberries are a lot like humans it seems in their built-in contrasts. But we pick them early before they are yet totally sweet, we enjoy their mid-season by filling buckets for jam and jelly-making, then in the waning part of the season as September creeps in, we get distracted or sated and ignore them. Yet, if we luck into a late summer rain, the remaining red berries flush purple and are the best of the season. Like those last few eggs ovulated in peri-menopause, the fruits seem to be begging us to pick them as they poke out beyond the worst of the spines and reveal glistening purpleness.
I know one elite blackberry picker who grew up in coastal British Columbia and holds a lifelong dedication to blackberrying. Higher level tricks like mapping out his favorite patches then picking the patch edge clean before taping his long-sleeved shirt closed at the cuffs, throwing a half sheet of plywood onto the top of the patch to access the middle and upper berries. Less committed pickers would never tread to the prickly interior patch. He claims that the best berries are the large terminal berries that practically fall into your hand when ripe.
A little science on this delicious fruit now. It was introduced from the mountain slopes of Armenia in Northern Iran, hence the Latin name Rubus armeniacus. The species thrives in British Columbia hill slopes as it would have around moister areas in Armenia’s Himalayan foothills. Blackberries favor disturbed soils with plenty of light, thus, clear cuts, roadsides, abandoned horse pastures, and fence lines are quickly colonized. A good patch can produce 10,000 seeds per square meter and the birds, raccoons, bears, and mice that devour the fruits disperse these seeds far and wide in their feces (fertilizer packages!). The adult plants spread thumb-thick and spine-infested canes up to 40 feet out and 15 feet tall and the canes root wherever they touch the ground. Ironically, blackberry fruits are not a true berry like grapes or blueberries which are called “drupes”, rather, blackberries are a composite of druplets each of which contains a seed. The juicy fruit surrounding each seed is the incentive to eat the fruit but from the plant’s perspective, sweetness production is just the price it pays for foragers to disperse its valuable seeds. Win/win!
Once home, blackberries don’t last long so eat them within a day before mold forms or pull out the canning equipment and some pectin (they don’t jell well on their own). A quick blanche before crushing in cheese cloth produces a wonderful base for dark purple and staining jelly. Alternatively, cook the whole picked berries with equal parts sugar and some pectin and can with a pressure canner to preserve this purple goodness for years (It won’t last that long, promise!).
Gifting blackberry jam to friends is best done to those who know the plant because they will appreciate the blood sweat and tears (that is tear as in ripping) involved in picking blackberries. In some areas there are snakes and black bears to watch for as well and it is prime mosquito season. You EARN your blackberries! Just when you have had you fill of dealing with blackberries, an early frost ends the season and it will be July the next year before you are longing for them to re-appear. How well they have us trained!
