August is the time of the grain harvest, but of course it's also the month that the blackberry harvest begins. I've been eagerly anticipating the first juicy black berries of the season, but I was still happily surprised when I realised the first few had appeared.
Most of the earlier season berries we enjoy in this country are cultivated - strawberries, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, loganberries, tayberries and blueberries; while most of the other 'wild' berries - rowan berries, elderberries, haws, rosehips and sloes - are best processed in some way before eating. Blackberries, however are wild, free, bountiful and perfectly delicious plucked straight from the vine. No wonder they've been eaten by humans for at least 8,000 years (according to the archaeological evidence)! It's not just humans who benefit from this fantastic resource - the berries are also eagerly consumed by birds, foxes, badgers, mice and other small mammals. The flowers provide nectar for bees and other pollinating insects, and the leaves are grazed by deer and are an important food source for caterpillars. Thorny bramble thickets also provide shelter, nesting sites and a safe haven from predators for birds, small mammals and even grass snakes.
Have you ever noticed that not all blackberries taste the same? It's not your imagination. There are actually more than 330 subspecies of blackberries in the UK alone - so I suggest doing a 'taste test' of the blackberries in your area and taking careful note of where the best are to be found!
Herbalists use blackberry (the roots, leaves and berries) to treat a variety of conditions including diarrhoea, burns, dysentery, inflammation and sore throats. I find it interesting that a plant capable of inflicting such nasty scratches is used as a soothing remedy.
Such a well-known plant inevitably has a lot of folklore attached to it. On the Isle of Man it was said to be unlucky to eat the first ripe blackberries as they belonged to the faeries, yet in other parts of the country the first fruits contained healing powers (as I don't live on the Isle of Man I decided it would be fine for me to eat the first blackberries I found - and they were delicious!). The plant was also used to magically heal those suffering from a variety of ailments (including ruptures, pimples and boils) by passing the afflicted person under the archway formed by a bramble branch. In Christian lore it's said the berries are black because brambles were used to make Christ's crown of thorns. It was also said that Lucifer landed painfully in a blackberry bush when he was thrown out of Heaven and in anger he spits (or in some tellings, urinates!) on the berries each Michaelmas Day (29th September) after which the berries are unpalatable and should not be picked. It seems more likely to me that it's actually the colder weather and frosts at the end of September that are to blame for overly soft, tasteless blackberries! Despite all these negative associations, blackberry bushes were thought to protect against evil spirits and were often planted near homes for this reason (I'm sure the berries were an added bonus!).
There are some wonderful folk names for the plant including bramble, bumblekites, black leg, bounty thorn, skaldberry, blackbutters, blackbides, scaldhead and gatterberry.
Embracing Autumn: Go Blackberrying!
Take the family, take a basket, and go blackberrying. The bushes are easily found in hedgerows and on wasteground. Do watch out for the sharp thorns which will catch and scratch you, and the berries will stain your fingers - but the reward of a basket full of juicy fruit will be well worth it. Eat them fresh, or bake them into cakes, pies, crumbles, muffins. Blackberry ice cream, blackberry sorbet, blackberry fool. Make blackberry jam or jelly, blackberry syrup, blackberry wine, or steep them in gin or vodka with a little added sugar to produce blackberry liqueur
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