Blackberry Foraging (aka Brambling)

This is absolutely one of my favorite summer past times. A few tips on how to choose and store the best ones:

1. Choose dull looking blackberries over shiny ones. If a blackberry is shiny it means it has just ripened and will taste sour. Blackberries need time to sweeten after growing to size, and the best time to pluck it is when its skin starts looking matte.

2. Avoid picking from parts of bushes with spider webs. The spiders are clearly there for a reason; it usually means flies have been frequenting that neck of the woods and there's a high chance that they have laid eggs on the berries.

3. Avoid picking blackberries with broken pods -- insects do this to lay eggs inside.

4. Forage from bushes with thorns for sweet blackberries. The thornless variety produces sour blackberries.

5. Avoid washing them or soak the berries in salt water if you're not going to be using them soon.

I hope this helps

 

Around here in East Texas you need to keep your eyes pealed for snakes. Bugs like berries, rats like bugs and berries and snakes like rats! I also have seen my Dad get just eaten up with chiggers in the berry patch. Chiggers don't like me so it is never a problem for me. That used to REALLY piss him off LOL.