blackberry picking

1sttimer_2

2cats1kid wrote: »

Yes, I always remembered September/October being blackberrying time when I was a kid, but I've been blackberrying here for 3 or 4 weeks now. They are hanging off the bushes hereabouts. And the elderberries are ripe I noticed today, so need to go out and get some of them.

So what do elderberries look like and what do you do with them

2cats1kid

They look like this
http://newbeingnutrition.com/wordpress/elderberry-facts/
and you can use them for wine, jelly, syrup, or as a mixed hedgerow jelly/jam with blackberries, rosehips, haws, etc.

Barneysmom

1sttimer, elderberries are Gods best gift.
A lovely syrup to have with ice cream or pancakes, yummy scrummy
I used to make the wine years ago, and once made 17 gallons of various including elderberry, blackberry, rosehip and tea.
You can make3 week wine with Just juice too.


meanmarie
How do you make the elderberry and apple jelly? Do you use gelatine, or make it like jam?

billieboy_2

The only ripe ones I've seen so far here in the Midlands are on a railway bank that I can't get to:mad: . In our local park which is huge there are loads but all still green and a lot of them tiny. I've never even thought about maggots before until reading this thread, :eek: , I've always just cooked them but maybe I'll soak them in salt water overnight from now on. I'm running out of jam sized jars now having made strawberry, blackcurrant and rhubarb so far and also pickled garlic at the weekend. Will have to ask friends and neighbours (again:D ).

Barneysmom

Pickled garlic! Cor, never heard of it :j is it good? Guess it must be........

I'm Midlands too - Staffordshire, we got loads of blackberries about, thousands of them! You could feed a small army on them.

billieboy_2

Barneysmom wrote: »

Pickled garlic! Cor, never heard of it :j is it good? Guess it must be........
Lovely! Tried some marinated from Lichfield market on Saturday and got some bulbs bogof in local Somerfield (two for 39p). Bit of a faff peeling it all but hopefully will be worth it:rolleyes: . Funny thing is it doesn't make your breath garlicky.

I'm Midlands too - Staffordshire, we got loads of blackberries about, thousands of them! You could feed a small army on them.

I find it amazing that some places have got loads ripe and others hardly any. Must be to do with the amount of sunshine they get. It's not a north south divide either.

Little_Miss_Saver

I took my friends dog for a walk yesterday and spotted loads of blackberries but they were still green and hard . I have got the dog til the end of August so will try again in a couple of weeks to see if they have ripened.

I hope to make some jams and crumbles with mine if I can get some!

LMS xx

billieboy_2

Little_Miss_Saver wrote: »

I took my friends dog for a walk yesterday and spotted loads of blackberries but they were still green and hard . I have got the dog til the end of August so will try again in a couple of weeks to see if they have ripened.

I hope to make some jams and crumbles with mine if I can get some!

LMS xx

I told my dog today he'd be spending a lot of time hanging around in the park in a few weeks' time:D .

walmerstores

If you want cheap jars morrisons do a curry sauce for 8p which isn't too bad if you give it a bit more zing you could kill 2 birds with one stone and use the sauces for bulk cooking for the freezer and the jars for jam

2cats1kid

It is even more bizarre here as the bushes are ripening at different rates. Some of them are already past their best and others are only just coming into the red stage.

Just been out and got another 2lb - yay! No maggots visible, but I'll soak and see how many of the little beggars crawl out of their hiding places. Plan is to make blackberry and apple leather and blackberry ice cream tomorrow, and maybe start off a rumtoft with a few too.

The apple tree along my route yielded a few small green apples, so they will get boiled down for pectin later, just in case DH comes home with 8lb of strawberries again this weekend (I'm not getting caught without pectin a second time!).

Our elders aren't ripe yet, but the ones 20miles away that we passed today were fully ripe, so I need to be patient a while yet.