A Bramble Ramble

For the last nearly twenty years, we’ve had many wild berries on our land from wild strawberries to blueberries to raspberries to blackberries. Those latter two, however, although abundant in brambles, bore only a moderate amount of smallish fruits. Still those berries were delicious and treasured by us, our dog, and the wild critters who also live on this land.

This year, however, all berries gave abundantly. The wild strawberries were plentiful like I’ve never seen here before. The blueberries, often generous, also had a banner year. The raspberries too. And the blackberries bore flowers and berries unlike any I’ve seen anywhere.

I have fond memories of blackberries as a child, particularly baked into a blackberry cobbler. I don’t know how often that happened, maybe even only once, but it’s remained as one of my favorite desserts. This year picking enough berries, and it takes a lot, for a cobbler has been a cinch, yet I still feel as if I’ve hardly taken many berries away from the harvest of our wild neighbors at all – there are so many left on the brambles black and ripening, and a profusion of green ones yet to blacken.

Like all wild harvesting, there’s the Honorable Harvest to follow with gathering blackberries. Following that code enters you into a relationship with the brambles as a community and as individuals. I know this will sound wooo-ee-wooo-ee to most people, and I’m not a wooo-ee-wooo-ee person myself. But with following the Honorable Harvest, picking blackberries becomes a meditation and a deeply satisfying visit with relatives. You leave not only with a full container, but a feeling of deeper connection to the community of the land you call home.

A few of my thoughts on harvesting these delicious wild gifts are in the video clip below.

Wishing you a happy gathering!