Blackberry Season Is Almost Here!


At the end of June into early July, I start exploring the property with one thing on my mind: are the blackberries black yet??? We have acres of wild blackberry bushes all over, so I wind my way through the trails and up the ridge to the largest patches just to see what colors I can find.


Right now, there is still a lot of green in many patches. Once the flowers fall off and the berries start to grow, they’re a lighter green than the leaves around them.


Then the green slowly turns pink, then red, then a dark maroon color. It’s like watching pink lemonade going up a straw, seeing the color changing little by little.


In several blackberry patches, there is a good range of red colors, meaning some are about ready to turn black. And by the looks of things, it should only be a few more days until they’re ready to start picking - a week or two at the most!


My favorite part of these reconnaissance missions is seeing how heavy the branches are with berries. If you look for me on Pinterest, you’ll see a board completely devoted to blackberry recipes I want to try this season. Since wild blackberries are much smaller than the berries you buy in the grocery store, I’ll need a lot of them to have cup-fulls for baking. And eating. And cooking. And eating. Good thing there’s acres of berries!

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