Fresh and Free Blackberries

Fresh blackberries free for you to pick!! And eat of course...you will end up with black lips and tongue.

The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by any of several species in the Rubus genus of the Rosaceae family. The fruit is not a true berry; botanically it is termed an aggregate fruit. The plants typically have biennial canes and perennial roots. Blackberries and raspberries are also called caneberries or brambles. It is a widespread, and well known group of over 375 species, many of which are closely related apomictic microspecies native throughout the temperate northern hemisphere and South America.

The flowers are produced in late spring and early summer on short racemes on the tips of the flowering laterals. Each flower is about 2-3 cm in diameter with five white or pale pink petals. The newly developed primocane fruiting produces flowers and fruits on the new growth.

In botanical terminology, the fruit is not a berry, but an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets ripening to black or dark purple.

Mothers and their children often have a good day out in the woods to pick blackgerries and later make jam or jelly. Sometimes a family can make up to 40 bottles of jam in a good year. They can trade them in a farm market day if they like to. The soft fruit is popular for use in desserts, jams, seedless jellies and sometimes wine. It is often mixed with apples for pies and crumbles. It is similar activity to our meedin plucking in the early morning. Meedin is often a good plant to grow along our fences if we care a lot about their beauty and at the same time benefits as a free natural food for our humble table. For more 2000 years according to some studies mankind has been eating blackberries ...a gift from nature!!

Blackberries are found growing on hedgerows all over England and especially in the Isle of Wight. The picture bove show blackberries growing on a fence thus making a good land divide.