Monday, June 27, 2011
Foraging for Wild Blackberries in My Front Yard
Yesterday, I picked these berries off the "mystery" wild berry plant growing in my front yard. I'm 99.9% sure that it's definitely a wild Blackberry. Indeed the berries turned from bright red to a black color. The hubs and I tasted the berries, yup, sweet and tart. There are a lot of berries growing, but definitely not enough for jam. So we'll just pluck the berries as we see them ripening and enjoy them as little treats.
I foraged for these today. I love that I can forage for food in my own front yard! How incredibly awesome. I can't believe I never noticed this plant growing in my front yard last year. Many of you warned that wild blackberries can be incredibly invasive. I'll keep an eye on how these plants grow and will trim them or pull them if they get out of control. But for now, I will just enjoy!!
I wonder if I can consider this a harvest for Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions blog? haha
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It is hard to consider any berry plant invasive, I think. LOL
ReplyDeleteHooray on officially being a forager!! Congrats on the well placed wild blackberry plant!!
ReplyDeleteThe bummer is that once you've decided it is invasive, it could be too late to pull it. Blackberries are busy sending out runners underground, and they will send up sprouts. They are very difficult to eradicate--even roundup doesn't work on them and you will have to step up to an even more poisonous herbicide, or pluck them out by hand over and over again (ouch!). Several areas of our property are completely taken over by these brambles. Maybe I should take photos for you. The goats will work on them, but only the leaves. They leave the 1" or more diameter vine, which is covered in those huge thorns I told you about. And, not only that, but those vines, even when dead, last for years! They're like barbed wire.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is nice to go to a nearby thicket of them and pick the berries, but it does take a lot to pick through the brambles and huge thorns. It can be quite painful.
Sorry to be a bummer. Trust me, I'm a huge fan of blackberries! But these are plants you probably don't want proliferating in your yard. If you decide to plant some, there is a thornless variety of "triple crown" that I really like. It's about 3 times the size of the ones that you picked, and incredibly sweet. Yumyum.
Definitely black berries. They grow wild up here in Northern California almost every where you look! So yummy!
ReplyDeleteyum! blackberries. I can't wait to have berries growing in my yard..when I have one:)
ReplyDeleteThey are tasty, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteThat would be exciting to have those pretty berries growing. It's too bad they are hard to control.
ReplyDeleteI am growing common milkweed for the monarchs, even though they spread. They do seem to stay pulled, though, as I am only allowing them to grow in the area they first came up in.
I have a mulberry tree coming up in my compost area. I wonder if I could control its size. I bought some mulberries from the farmer's market, adn they were pretty good.
We have several wild black berry patches we visit regularly each year to pick from. We have some growing next to the garden as well, but I tend to keep it confined by whacking it back with a machete (which greatly reduces it s berry production but is necessary for the garden's sake).
ReplyDeleteI pull most of them up out of my flower beds.... If you do it when the soil is damp, you can pretty much pull all the root up. I still have several beds that I haven't gotten around to completely cleaning out yet.
ReplyDeleteThey look delicious. I'd be afraid to have them in my garden. Raspberries are as far as I'll grow and here those are real weeds.
ReplyDelete